Preview: Andi Watson’s ‘The Book Tour’ Gets A Sequel In ‘A Lack Of Alibi’

Andi Watson‘s The Book Tour gets a suitably Kafka-esque sequel from Top Shelf Productions this October in A Lack Of Alibi…

Andi Watson is, by my reckoning, one of the UK’s finest comic-making talents, and has been for a number of years. His library of works is impressive, whether its his adult graphic novels such as Glister, Breakfast Afternoon, Little Star, Slow News Day,  Love Fights, or Dumped, or his inventive, fun, and funny all-ages books in the Gum Girl series, Princess Decomposia & Count Spatula, and Punycorn, he always delights and impresses with his work. He’s also been responsible for writing and art on books such as Skeleton Key from Slave Labor; Paris and Sunburn, with Simon Gane, from Image Comics; plus various Buffy tales from Dark Horse, and Namor and 15 Love from Marvel.

Back in 2019, Top Shelf published his wonderful graphic novel for adults, The Book Tour, a magnificent Kafka-esque dark comedy of misadventures, mistaken identity, and a day going very, very wrong. In that, he told the complex and spiralling tale of an English novelist out promoting his latest book, only to find himself heading down the rabbit hole of absurdity and nightmare as events got the better of him and the police start asking questions about a mysterious disappearance.

If you haven’t already read it, I can heartily recommend it as one of those books that will delight and intrigue, full of Watson’s stylish and minimalist artwork.

Now, though, I’m here to talk to you about the sequel to The Book Tour, a stand-alone sequel released by Top Shelf Productions on 9 October 2026, The Book Tour (Book 2): A Lack Of Alibi.

Here’s what Top Shelf have to say about this one…

‘Have you ever been mistaken for someone else … every day for a week? Keep your wits about you in this head-spinning, Kafkaesque mystery in brilliant retro style.

Door-to-door encyclopedia salesman Mortimer arrives in the city in a hurry. He wants to get home in time for his daughter’s sports day, but first he needs to make a sale. All that’s stopping him is a murderer on the loose, the police declaring him their prime suspect … and a lack of alibi.’

After all, as becomes clear to Mortimer … ‘There’s no evidence you didn’t do it.’

A Lack of Alibi promises to be more of the same from Watson: more twists and turns, more confusion, more dark comedy, more disastrous everyday calamities, the little moments of confusion and coincidence that create a situation where poor Mortimer finds himself in a nightmarish world beyond his understanding.

And all of this with the loose yet incredibly controlled style of Watson’s art that we saw on The Book Tour, where every single line holds meaning and import, where there’s no wasted mark on the page, everything is just pure comics-making brilliance.

Now, a little preview of the book, all taken from the Top Shelf site…