Lonely Receiver is a brutal debut, in both the way it packs an emotional punch and the way harsh truths about relationships are delivered through sci-fi metaphor. We meet a woman named Catrin in a future (a future is just enough like ours to be unsettling) where a romantic partner can be created through a company that produces Artificial Intelligence. She creates Rhion, and the two of them are instantly bonded: it’s what Catrin paid for, after all. Zac Thompson, who weaves various timelines together to create a surrealist, painful portrait of a break-up in this comic, jumps to a point in their life years down the line when Rhion’s interests have moved on (and on, and on, and on) from being monogamous to Catrin. The sci-fi element here elevates and underlines questions of monogamy, of how much a romantic relationship feels like ownership, and, maybe most of all, the way that we, in creating a relationship with another person, also create a version of that person. There are shades of Her and Alex & Ada because of the plot set-up, but Zac Thompson’s execution and thematic, almost surgical deconstruction of a relationship makes Lonely Receiver wholly its own beast.