The English seaside has long been seductive. Recently, many seaside towns have been pummelled by poverty and underinvestment with predictable results. Brexit, COVID and the climate crisis have heightened tensions. Writer Tom Sykes and illustrator Louis Netter take you on a wild tour of 21 English coastal communities. Their encounters are comical, sad, weird and beguiling sometimes all at once. A post-lockdown beach party turns violent in Bournemouth. The Hampshire shores pile up with plastic waste and sewage. Trailer parks and makeshift homes resemble Global-South shanty towns. Covid disinformation is daubed on walls and benches across the Dorset coast. A pub in Scarborough celebrates Ulster paramilitarism. A Blackpudlian musician confesses an intimate connection to a serial killer. But theres good news too. Combers and mudlarkers are cleaning our beaches. Portsmouthians are coming to terms with the imperial past. Art projects are drawing attention to coastal erosion and other ecological menaces. Blackpool is reinventing itself in its own unique way. In an increasingly uniform England of red-brick estates and retail parks, seaside towns might just be our last outposts of individuality and eccentricity. So knot a handkerchief on your head, crack open a warm beer and dive in.

Illustrated by: Louis Netter