Sentient

Written by Jeff Lemire
Art by Gabriel Walta

I've yet to be disappointed with an offering from TKO Studios, the up and coming publisher that offers their books as both a trade paperback and as a handsomely slipcased six-issue miniseries.

I was pleasantly surprised last week when I got my copy of Sentient, one of their second wave books, in the mail last week, having given up hope of it arriving this calendar year.

Like the previous ones I've read, I was immediately impressed with the production quality of the book, which has nice heavy paper, and a really good feel to it.  My pleasure only increased when I started to read the book.

Sentient is set on the USS Montgomery, a colony ship delivering a small group of families to a distant colony.  Things have gotten bad on Earth, and so it is time to start establishing families on the colony, even though it is being plagued by separatist unrest.  The journey involves passing through a radiation belt that makes communication with either Earth or the planet impossible (making me wonder how the two places communicate with one another).  As the ship passes into the silent zone, one of the women on board enacts her plan to kill all the other adults, and to take the large group of children living there to her separatist compatriots.

The plan doesn't work, as Valarie, the AI that runs the ship, kills the woman to protect the children (her safety protocols are shut off at the moment).  After that, Valarie has to continue her plotted trip, while also looking after the kids.  Lil, the oldest child, is more or less in charge of the kids, and she does not trust Isaac, the son of the murderess. 

This alone would make for an interesting story, as the AI has to figure out how to exceed her parameters, but Jeff Lemire tosses some other threats, from preteen rage to other separatist vessels, at her.  I found this book pretty suspenseful, and was impressed with the character development achieved in limited space.

Gabriel Walta's art is terrific on this book.  His muted colours work great on this paper, and he packs a lot of emotion into his characters' faces.  I find it interesting that in his first big work since the excellent Vision miniseries, he is again having to give life to robotic characters. 

I want to check out more of TKO's second wave, as this is the only book that I ordered from it.  I'm hoping they announce more titles soon, as everything they've done so far has been great.