Jan's Atomic Heart and Other Stories

by Simon Roy

I picked up the original printing of Jan's Atomic Heart at the Toronto Comic Art Festival back in 2009, and was pretty impressed with it.  Since that time, writer/artist Simon Roy has been steadily making a name for himself working with Brandon Graham on Prophet, and on some random stories in places like Dark Horse Presents, and the recent new series The Field.  When I saw that Image was reprinting the original story, along with some other shorts as Jan's Atomic Heart and Other Stories, I knew I'd want to own it.

The title story still reads very well.  Jan is a man whose consciousness has been transferred into a metallic body while his own body recovers from an illness or injury.  He is a little suspicious, however, that this body is not like other ones used for these purposes, and of course, things are not all as they seem.  Roy provides some interesting twists, and his sketchy, loose art style works well here.

I was pleased to enjoy the other short stories as much or more than the main tale.  In one strip, a man and a talking ape have been marooned on an island together for years, and when escape finally looks to be possible, they don't react the same way.

Many of these stories feature alien creatures or beings that would not be out of place in Prophet.  In one story, Americans try to sell weapons to a faction of insect creatures as a ploy to gain land for themselves.  In another, a bar brawl turns weird very quickly.

Roy is a very talented storyteller, whose work keeps improving.  His is a career I look forward to watching grow and develop.

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.