An academic couple from New York pack for their sabbatical in Oaxaca, Mexico. Meanwhile, a monarch butterfly prepares for its southern migration to Mexico. The world is interconnected in Peter Kuper’s graphic novel, Ruins. A familiar name for fans of the genre for his pictorial rendering of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Kuper combines a fetching illustrative style with observations about culture, politics and poverty with an apt sense of humor. Sparing the life of a cockroach, the protagonist shrugs: “You’ll survive everything—including the Apocalypse—you and Keith Richards.”