Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Jan's Atomic Heart

by Simon Roy

I saw this get reviewed at Eye On Comics, and remember that it got a very favourable review. I tend not to read past the first paragraph or two when I read reviews of books I might buy some day - sometimes they give too much away. So basically, I just filed this away in my head, thinking that if I ever saw it somewhere, I'd pick it up.

At TCAF this weekend, Simon Roy was in attendance, and had the book for sale. The price was decent, so I thought it was worth picking up. It's a really good comic. It's his first, and the guy is only about 21 years old, so it's all very impressive to me.

The comic is about Jan, some guy in Germany in the future, who has had his body (and car) wrecked in some kind of run-in with a train. He's tele-operating a robot body which was built on Luna, which is in conflict with the EU. The same type of body was recently used in terrorist attacks, and Jan starts to get a little suspicious that he might be being manipulated.

The art is a little sketchy but it tells its story very nicely. Roy shows some serious talent as both a writer and an artist. The twists at the end were not predictable, and the concept behind this is well thought-out and executed. I can see him becoming a major talent in the future.

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