A Boy and a Girl Written by Jamie S Rich, illustrated by Natalie Nourigat
It seems as if the Age of Robots has become as they appear in more and more places and it's becoming harder and harder to distinguish them from flesh and blood humans. Travis didn't realize that his new crush is more robot than human but when their's chemistry does it really matter?
I did enjoy this comic, more than I expected and I do recommend it, especially since I feel like I come across fewer, "unique" sci-fi stories in comics. But, I wasn't as fond of the ending and due to it being the ending of the story I don't full comfortable talking about it and making this a spoilery review! So suffice to say, while ending does work on one level I felt like it negated a few ideas in the rest of the story and the believability was a bit shot by how many unbelievable things all happened at the same time (characters quipping about how strange this is or not). Also it was a bit sad and I totally wanted a happier ending.
To talk about a non-spoilery thing that didn't work quite as well for me, Charley and Travis develop deep feelings for each other in a super short amount of time (and without starting with mutual attraction) which was also a bit harder for me to buy into. This is once again where my own queerness pops up, am I supposed to believe that it's "realistic" for characters to fall in love so fast and empathize or am I supposed to view this as incredibly, incredibly unlikely but sympathize since I want to see the characters get together? I don't know but it made me more confused than intended! Believing that the characters can form a deep relationship, despite everything working against them, is critical to enjoying the story so if you're even less romantically inclined than I am I this is not the story for you.
Again, I did like the story and I also liked the art quite well. I have Nourigat's Between Gears bookmarked to read for when I have a moment and her next title Over the Surface also looks cool (I should note that she did the art and the story for these two works so I'm curious how she handles the writing side). Sometimes the shading got a bit too stark (or rather, I remember that it had a limited color scheme and a lot of solid colors, blacks, and whites without a lot of blended shading) which is less to my taste but didn't draw me out of the story. It's a good, solid work all around and if it didn't hit all of the right notes for me I'm sure it did for other readers.
And on a final note, if you liked this comic/want to read it but don't have it right now, I also fully recommend O Human Star which is another, near future sci-fi with robots that's a bit more concerned with artificial intelligence than the actual mechanics of robots (but lest you think that these stores are just too "high minded" to deal with the mechanicals both of these stories find the physical aspect of robots fascinating too!)
-intresting reveals, although at some level they kinda negate the point of the book
-ie, advanced robots are a myth oooooh but here are plenty of them!
-I see where the creator was going with the theme but it feels like they shot believability with so many unbelievable things happening so close together
-also made the ending a bit sad
-do want to see more work from ___, example ____
