Review by Ian Keogh

Lori wakes up one morning to find her house deserted, and so are the streets. Almost everyone has disappeared, although her friend Annette is among the few who haven’t. They scavenge tinned food and avoid an organised masked gang while living a hand to mouth existence. That is until they’re the ones who see lights in the sky and follow them to see a giant luminescent being, one of a pair in the area.

Kieron Gillen makes Lori the exclusive focal point for exploring how the world has changed, with the narrative captions entirely her thoughts. It’s a smart move as it circumvents the questions every reader will have about how and why almost everyone has disappeared. Taking a realistic path, albeit in a fantasy graphic novel, there’s no way anyone in Lori’s position is likely to discover the answers to those questions, and she just has to react to circumstances as they are. Lori is an astute observer, but ultimately of beings who are unknowable, and Gillen contrasts day to day survival with the hope of something better.

While we hear Lori’s reactions and commentary, what she’s experiencing can be flipped and viewed as a superior intelligence looking kindly on pets. It’s a thought prompted by the way Stephanie Hans illustrates, and is represented by Lori and the giant hand on the cover. It’s a rare situation when Lori’s not having to look up. Hans responsible for the colour as well as the illustration results in one magnificent looking page following another, the light from the brightly coloured giants reflected in the world around them.

Almost a fairytale, certainly a coming of age story, We Called Them Giants eventually becomes a surprisingly human fable about aliens. That’s a fair achievement.