A prescient cyberpunk mystery about privacy, surveillance, and digital paranoia just earned a major nod from Booklist.

The Private Eye, the Eisner Award-winning series from Brian K. Vaughan (Saga, Pride of Baghdad) and artist Marcos Martín (Friday, Barrier), is now available in paperback from Image Comics. Booklist called it “truly one of a kind” in a starred review, praising its “stunning artwork, propulsive sequential-art storytelling, and a thought-provoking premise.”

The story takes place in 2076, after a catastrophic data breach called “the cloud burst” exposed everyone’s secrets. Society responded by abandoning the internet entirely. People now hide behind masks and fake identities, desperate to cling to whatever privacy they have left. It’s a world where anonymity became the ultimate luxury.

At the center is an unlicensed private investigator who stumbles onto a case that could change everything.

Vaughan and Martín originally released The Private Eye as a pay-what-you-want digital comic in 2013, a bold experiment that paid off. The story feels even more relevant now, tapping into fears about AI manipulation, surveillance, and what happens when trust in technology collapses.

For creators worried about where the digital world is heading, this one hits close to home.