Alex Alice: Writing and Drawing the Dream of the Sky

Castle in the Skies is one of those rare graphic novels where story, art, and object feel inseparable, each one deepening the other.

Some artists don’t just tell stories, they build worlds that ask you to slow down and look closer.

That’s how we feel every time we open Castle in the Skies, written and illustrated by Alex Alice. It’s a book that feels expansive and intimate at the same time, full of invention, curiosity, and a deep love of exploration.

At first glance, the world feels playful and adventurous. Airships drift through vast skies. Young explorers chase the unknown. But the longer you sit with the pages, the more you feel something quieter at work, a careful balance between scientific wonder and human emotion.

This isn’t spectacle for spectacle’s sake.It’s curiosity made visual.

Alex Alice has spoken about his admiration for Jules Verne, the 19th-century science-fiction writer whose work shaped generations of readers. Verne imagined the impossible with scientific grounding, from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea to From the Earth to the Moon and treated discovery not as fantasy, but as possibility.

That lineage is unmistakable here.

Science isn’t cold in these pages.It’s hopeful.

Process & Craft: Building Wonder by Hand

One of the things we love most about Castle in the Skies is how deeply Alex Alice thinks about how a story is experienced, not just read.

We collect his Gazette-style editions, inspired by 19th-century newsprint, and they feel nothing short of magical. They arrive folded like an old newspaper. You open them slowly, spread them out, and read column by column, image by image, just as readers once did.

It immediately shifts your mindset.

You’re not just reading a graphic novel.

You’re handling an object from another era.

The format itself becomes part of the storytelling. It echoes the age of invention and scientific optimism that inspired the story, asking you to slow down and engage physically with the work.

It’s a remarkably generous and inventive way to share a world.

That same care is present in the drawings themselves. The line work feels confident but never rushed. The colour, especially in newer print editions, has a softness that invites you to linger. Each page feels considered, patient, and deeply human.

And while we’re completely charmed by the Gazette editions, we can’t help ourselves, we also collect the hardcover editions. They feel like the perfect counterpoint: solid, archival, meant to live on a shelf and be returned to again and again.

Between the folded newsprint and the bound volumes, Alex Alice offers readers two very different but equally thoughtful ways to live with the same story.

Why This Work Matters to Us

There are certain books we return to not just for inspiration, but for reassurance, reminders of why we make stories at all.

Castle in the Skies is one of those books.

It reminds us that imagination doesn’t need to rush. That curiosity can be gentle. That wonder doesn’t have to shout to be powerful.

What stays with us most is the care, care for the reader, for the object, for the act of discovery itself. Whether it’s a folded Gazette edition that asks you to slow down, or a beautifully bound hardcover meant to last, the message is the same: stories deserve attention.

Wonder grows when you give it time.

Our storytelling is fast-paced and cinematic, driven by expressive characters and a camera that actively shapes the story. As we build our graphic novels and worlds, we’re deeply moved by books like these especially how large panels are used to slow the rhythm, create breathing room, and give moments the space they need to land.

Alex Alice’s work is a reminder that science, imagination, and emotion can coexist on the page. That craft leads quietly, but powerfully.

That’s the kind of work we aspire to make.