Joyride
In the near future, humankind has finally found life in the
universe! And we are TERRIFIED. In response, the government creates a dome called
SafeSky to protect us from extraterrestrial life and have used this fear as an
excuse to create a fascist, controlled society. As you do. Or as humans do,
anyway. Shock Doctrine engage! Power up the giant gun on the moon!
Characters/Plot 8/10
The characters of Joyride
are relatable namely because they are familiar types without being
stereotypes. Namely, in another title, Dewydd would probably be the lead,
haplessly following his manic pixie dreamgirl Uma into the great beyond.
Instead, within the first volume, all three leads have Goals, Motivation, and
Background that make their actions reasonable, if not always wise or expected.
For some it might be hard to relate to Uma’s enthusiastic (to
the point of irrationality) embrace of flinging herself into space, intent on
never coming back. But when you find out what’s happened to her, it all makes
sense. Dewydd is in fact following Uma because he loves her (this is barely a
spoiler), but this is complicated by the fact that her character isn’t there to
teach him anything, and she has romantic inclinations of her own.
Catrin starts as your standard security guard getting swept
up in the hero’s madcap adventures, but turns out to be a whole lot more. She’s
also Uma’s enemies to friends to potential love, and it’s done in a slow way
that I wholeheartedly approve of.
I have to admit that I’m strongly in favor of slow burns
over insta-love, no matter the genre, but especially for LGB characters,
everything tends to happen at once, because the writers often lose interest
after sweeps to knock one of them off. Boo. In Joyride vol 1, we’re still eeking toward friendship.
The side characters are also worth paying attention to,
especially the robot/ship’s pilot/Uma’s text buddy and the alien wanderer they
pick up at their first stop who is constantly nonplussed or horrified by the
antics of the humans he’s fallen in with.
If I had a criticism to make, it’s that the emotional
resolution of the final chapter comes pretty quickly. But I’m willing to excuse
it since the story is otherwise well-paced and Uma tends to be mercurial in
nature. It feels believable that she would shift her feelings very quickly from
one state to another.
Art 7/10
I grade comic art on a few specific criteria: Can I tell
what’s happening? (Clear lines, distinguishable action, etc.) Are the
characters identifiable with recognizable facial expressions? And are there
moments to elevate the sequential drawing to art?
Joyride gets high
points on clarity of action and emotive characters. The designs for the aliens
are neat, too, and it was interesting without being too cutesy, gross, or
ridiculous. The panels are well laid out and the artist does an excellent job
of directing they eye through the course of action, even when there are
floating panels or smaller panels layered on top of a larger scene.
The comic misses out on higher Art points, but that isn’t an
aim of this volume, and there are some very well composed scenes of our teens
looking up at a huge field of stars and the entire Protex scene with Uma and
Catrin has a lot of meaning pressed into a few pages.
Also, space dance party.
 |
| Two women and a robot dance |
Narrative Themes:
Important themes:
Bio-fam Loyalty vs Found Family
Security vs Freedom
Human Expectations vs Alternative Alien Logics
I won’t go into details on these at the end of this volume
because it would involve spoilers and I need to see the full arcs to accurately
judge. What I will say at this moment is that the fact that these themes are
present is a plus for the title. You could easily just have a group of teens
run off and have adventures with no deeper connection for any of the
characters. I appreciate what’s started here, particularly the dystopian
elements, as dystopia literature has been a research interest of mine and I’ve
taught dystopia lit. Love it.
You can’t do dystopian Earth without making the human
connections and addressing the issues of violence and conflicted loyalties and
values, but the story doesn’t get too bogged down in philosophizing either.
TL;DR
Overall, I’m going with a definite recommendation. I picked
this volume up as a free review copy for Netgalley, simply based on the LGBT
label, but if I’m honest, I would be interested in the story regardless based
on the dystopian and sci fi content.
The fact that other reviews keep going on about SPACE
GIRLFRIENDS doesn’t hurt. I’ve already secured the second volume, and I’ll be
preordering the third.
