Wet Moon Volume 7: Morning Cold is the finale to trans creator Sophie Campbell’s beloved graphic novel series, Wet Moon, which revolves around a queer group of goth friends, many of whom are attending art school in a small Southern town. What has always set the work apart is the diversity of Campbell’s characters: they are black, Asian, Latinx, and white; they are tall, short, skinny, and fat (you’ll rarely see so many big-busted round-bottom girls in a single novel); they are gay, straight, and bisexual; and they are abled bodied, blind, missing limbs, walking with crutches, and conjoined at the head. The first Wet Moon volume hit comic shops back in 2005 and resonated with readers; six more volumes followed. In 2018 came Wet Moon 7, the first new release in five years, and unfortunately, the series ender. Heavy on dialogue and the kind of daily drama that characterizes typical tumultuous college relationships, the underlying narrative that leads to the near death of a main character is a slow burn, gently festering through the series before roaring into a firestorm. Some supernatural elements introduced are never really resolved, leaving readers to wonder if they were only imagined, springing from the collective imaginations of so many creative young minds fascinated with gothic darkness. After all the twilight of the earlier volumes, Morning Cold is a bright new day that offers a happy ending in which nearly every major character finds love. Over the years, Wet Moon’s art has slowly evolved. In the interim Campbell has gone from creating her own independent comics to working on mainstream titles like Jem and the Holograms and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Her skills have undoubtably improved and that comes out in the art of the latest volume, which is also the first to include color. The strategic use of spot color brings to life the differently-hued hair of her young creatives; but die-hard fans may miss the older, slightly less polished designs that characterized many of the earlier volumes. An afterward offers insights into some of Campbell’s choices and creative process; she reveals for example, that she initially had 300 pages with one storyline plotted out, before deciding to change a major plot point and having to cut, rework, rearrange, and rewrite significant portions. (Oni Press)