Mia wrinkled her nose. “They smell like a basement. And they’re fragile. And the panels are tiny.”

“What is this?” a mother asked, staring at a PDF of a wordless, melancholy sci-fi comic about a robot planting trees on a dead planet.

When the power finally returned three weeks later, and the cloud reappeared with its subscription fees and targeted ads, most people went back to their old habits.

“Here,” he said, handing it to Mia. “Free PDF comic books.”