Episodes traverses the rocky landscape of on and offline social interactions, advertising and media in a way that is both darkly humorous and emotionally engaging. Set in a metropolitan city, spanning the mid-90s to early 2020, Episodes follows a diverse group of characters as they struggle to reconcile their messy day-to-day reality with the aspirational fiction of their ever-present screens.
“This is an epic tale told on a personal level,” says writer and artist Alex Scott. “Episodes is for an audience who grew up on a diet of scheduled TV programming and now feeds off a 24-hour cycle of social-media updates and sponsored content.”
“Episodes arrived in our inbox fully formed,” says Earth’s End Publisher Adrian Kinnaird. “It was obvious Alex had a clear personal vision and the execution of the book was very unique and innovative.” For Co-Publisher Damon Keen, a key feature of the book is its use of TV-style subtitles. “Some people find comics difficult to read; not everyone is familiar with the medium's conventions. Episodes solves this problem by presenting itself in a format we are all familiar with from film and television.”
A multidisciplinary artist from Auckland, Alex describes her first graphic novel as the culmination of a childhood spent in thrall of the TV, a degree in scriptwriting, 15 years as a sub-editor, an illustration and painting practice, and nine years as a cartoonist for the New Zealand Listener. “My trajectory hasn’t felt entirely logical, but it’s all fed into the making of Episodes,” she says. “This is an incredibly personal book to me because all the stories developed out of experiences or feelings I’ve had and finally felt ready to share.”