Hobo Mom

In this understated, satisfying graphic novella, Natasha is a modern-day hobo riding the rails disguised as a man, eternally restless and congenitally unreliable. When she returns to Tom, a shy locksmith and the father of their preteen daughter, Sissy, she throws their small-town routine into disarray. Sissy is awed by her mother’s womanhood and romantic tales of life in California redwood country, but Tom remains wary, knowing Natasha better than her daughter does. Forsman (The End of the Fxxxing World) and cartoonist de Radiguès collaborated on both the writing and drawing, and their low-key storytelling and clean, stripped-down art styles mesh so seamlessly that the book seems to be the work of one creator. The quiet story doesn’t go into detail about the characters’ pasts or motivations; it simply observes them at a certain point in time and then moves on, like a traveler hopping the next train out of town. This brief but well-crafted comic is a remarkably smooth collaboration. (Feb.)