BOOKLIST -- Lemire has been scripting corporate superhero comics in recent years, but he began his career writing and illustrating the acclaimed family saga Essex County. With <i>Royal City</i>, he makes a welcome return to human-scaled storytelling as well as to the drawing board. When his father suffers a stroke, Patrick Pike, a once-promising novelist suffering from writer's block, reluctantly returns to the dying industrial town where the rest of his family-his overbearing mother, ambitious sister, and reprobate brother-still live. Also still inescapably present, even though he drowned two decades ago, is the adored youngest sibling, Tommy, who haunts the damaged lives of his family. While Lemire's introduction and development of the characters and their backstories are quietly masterful, his wispy graphics-spindly figures, understated staging, and muted colors-are equally intrinsic to the work's potency. Although these initial chapters of the ongoing series are largely devoted to stage setting and establishing the milieu, Lemire leaves readers eager to see what lies ahead for the troubled Pike family.<br /><br /><br /><br />