hybrid cover art
hybrid
Author: Jamie Mustard
Painting: Francesca Filomena
Publisher: Street Noise Books
Publication date: November 2025
The best science fiction ostensibly reflects our reality and highlights serious issues and injustices. What writer Jamie Mustard and artist Francesca Filomena have created is an Afro-futuristic world that’s instantly recognizable to anyone living in a big city like Los Angeles or New York, but more importantly, a place that’s immediately understandable to any local. It can also be recognized that
In this dystopian near future, our hybrid, artist Johnny James, is the half-breed child of this hellish landscape, a city called the Great Angels. Raised in poverty, his childhood was wasted in state facilities that neglected the education of children. As one of the “depressed” children in this section home, Johnny discovered a love of art and the racist term “mulatto” used to describe people like him. He is reunited with his mother and siblings, and soon becomes a rising star in the art world of Great Angels.
hybrid interior art
Johnny is also a high-level psychic.
hybrid interior art
As we follow his growth, we see his powers grow. This is important for the ending, but I feel like there could be a stronger story without the powers. At the heart of this graphic novel is Mustard’s interpretation of the world, social and economic injustice against those trying their best to make their way, and Johnny’s powers are a distraction from this introspective exploration of our real world.
Like Johnny, the book is a hybrid mashup, an impassioned statement about race, culture, society, art, education, and the environment. This graphic novel gumbo combines social commentary with haunting visuals, asking why we can’t solve the world without resorting to military service or gentrification, or without a soapbox.
And like Gotham City to Batman, this city is more than just a note, and the fictional world of Great Angel that Johnny calls home is just as important to the story as it is to him. Johnny lives in an area known as the Cask. For those living in large cities with a history of immigration, this area is a familiar melting pot. Mustard’s worldview shines here. Archangel could have been a typical apocalyptic pitfall, but instead we are shown a world in pain, but within that suffering is a community. Outside of the prison-like section homes, there are places in Johnny’s City that shine like stars at night, like the park drum circle where members pull berries as they head to Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn. The people of The Cask live in the shadow of Follyland, the Great Angel’s utopia. At Foleyland, everything is bright, beautiful, and impressive, like the Morrocoa movie theater on Foleyland Boulevard. And although the casques are extremely poor, they are not as feared as the suburbs.
hybrid interior art
And what would cities be without people? From the various people who look after young Johnny, such as the sex worker Lev and Philino’s old man BJ Kung Fu, who gets into kung fu fights with passing kids, to the hardcore gang bangers who played a version of croquet in the park.
The textured world Johnny navigates is viscerally expressed by Philomena’s haunting, surreal visuals. The book is designed like a children’s picture book, with large splash pages and unconventional character anatomy. It does the job of messing with your head because if your brain sees these stylized images and it’s Guillermo del Toro or Tim Burton, it instantly associates it with your child’s bedtime book. The pages jump from bright, airy moments full of joy and excitement to mesmerizing, dark scenes. Some of my favorites are the dark, stylized pages. Due to the omniscient narrator, you don’t really “hear” Johnny’s voice, but the visuals make up for it.
I love a good science fiction comic, but I wanted to see more of this dirty, dangerous world. Growing up in New York City, loving Star Trek and Star Wars, coming of age in the 80s, discovering my city, finding family, loving drawing, growing up in New York City, there was still a pocket of hope and joy that spoke to my inner child.
Like the best science fiction and Afrofuturism, HYBRED is a quietly gorgeous book that has a lot to say.
hybrid interior art
HYBRED is scheduled to be released on November 18, 2025.
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