My eyes are painfully sore from lying in bed till 3am while holding a phone above my face and tapping it with my finger—I mean, scrolling. Oh yes, the phone was displaying environmentally unfriendly content best described as a spectacular ‘cancel campaign’ that exploded across Twitter and Instagram (never mind that I had work the next day). The drama was not even unfolding live; most of the Tweets happened ‘5hrs ago,’ but I needed updates on this cyber inquisition. If I had woken up to the news that Mark Zuckerberg made it to space, I would have felt incredibly proud, because I had financed at least the fuel. ‘We made it!’ I would tell the creative class that surrounds me with teary eyes. ‘We sent another billionaire to space by complaining about the last one on social media. Feel the fucken dopamine, comrades.’ Then I would roll a ciggie before discussing social issues to create the implicit message that good people run tobacco companies.

Yes, the online zeitgeist is so preachy it hurts. While this pointless frustration is bad for my heart (and my career opportunities), it has set me up nicely for the comic relief of The Party Within. This graphic book is written by artist Caroline Wylds and talks about her experience with a Messianic episode. Glom Press published the work alongside their alternative comics range, because The Party Within is styled like a colourful zine. It incorporates handwriting, drawings and builds on the author’s prior experience making zines. In a strange way, the book is also about the evolving role of communication technologies, for most of Caroline’s exploits are documented via email, snail post and Blogspot.