The plot concerns six main characters in Manhattan, New York City in January 2038. Though the interweaving stories are romantic in nature, they are steeped in science fiction and cyberpunk environments.

Paul Pope brings a quiet, old-school sensibility to noisy, postmodern comics with Heavy Liquid. This graphic novel, set in the late 21st century, focuses on all the classic elements of detective and adventure stories: lost love, mysterious clients, a package everyone wants, and a tired, barely willing protagonist. The narrative details--such as the eponymous liquid, whichis part munition, part drug, and much stranger than any character imagines--are calculated to foil the reader's assumptions, and the expressionistic artwork blends simple colors with bold lines to draw the eyes onward. It seems safe to say that cyberpunk's not dead.