(Sorry about that crappy scan, but I don’t want to break the spine of this book to get a better one. Too much information!) So you know that thing I said (and other, smarter people have been saying it too) about how this might end up being one of the better comics series ever after it’s all said and done? Well, after two volumes, I have to say that that instinct was correct. Once again, I say that you, person reading this who loves comics, should buy this right away, knowing as little as possible about it. Once again, if you need more convincing, I’ll try to hit some of the high points without ruining too much. Things start off with the squiggly lines that were so prevalent in the first volume (and which get a lot more context this time around) zooming in to a busy airport. This isn’t particularly relevant to the story, but it helps to know what kind of an artist Joshua is. A whole lot of people would show a vaguely busy scene with the main characters in focus and just leave everybody else in the image as blurry faces. Not this man; everybody has an expressive face, you can tell from the posture and expressions of these people exactly what they’re each going through at that moment, and there are instantly recognizable clues that tie back to the first volume (signs of the innernet). Again, not particularly relevant to the overall story, but it was impressive enough to stop me in my tracks. Then we see that this plane is in the air during the events at the end of the first volume, meaning everybody gets that awful feedback from the innernet at the same time, which is not at all a good thing to happen on an aircraft. From there we’re taken back in time to see a young bearded dude who looks a bit like the mystery man from the last volume, but in this case he’s living in a big city. His marriage has fallen apart and he meets a young French woman who’s intense but irresistible to him, and she’ll also be pretty damned familiar to everybody who read the last book. They both go about their lives, we get a few more of the silent flashes to the bearded man trying to navigate a strange land, and eventually our hero ends up on his family farm after his dad passes away unexpectedly. He gets into this sudden change in his lifestyle, but eventually Eva (the French lady) comes for a visit, which is when he gets a clearer picture of the mental issues she’s going through. It’s probably appropriate for a trigger warning here, because it’s some pretty brutal stuff, and it somehow manages to escalate throughout the book as he’s increasingly unable to help her. Eventually he’s offered an experimental treatment to help and, since he can’t afford anything else, he gives in. The rest of the book is them both dealing with the consequences of this decision before eventually getting back to the events at the end of the last volume. Again, it’s riveting stuff, and this is definitely one of those series where I’ll be reading each volume again for every new one that comes out, because they’re both packed with tiny details. Is it a bad sign if those squiggly lines have started making an audible sound in my head when I see them on the page? Yeah, I imagine it it. Anyway, I can’t recommend this book highly enough, and if you have a few bucks to help him on his way to 7 volumes, just throw $5 or $10 bucks at the guy, would you? The world needs this entire series in it. $30
