Author: Joshua Hale Fialkov
Publisher: Oni Press
Rating: WARTY!
Illustration, coloring, lettering by Joe Infurnari
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
I just could not get into this book despite it being a really interesting premise. The story lost me (several times) and the art work seemed more like preliminary sketches than final copy. Often the text was hard to read since it was in script form.
The story is that five college friends decide to bury a time capsule which they will meet and dig up at some point in the future. They pick a spot in the forest, and start digging only to uncover a buried bunker which has their names (that is, all but one of them) stenciled on it. They enter it and discover letters supposedly written by themselves from the future, warning each of them of the part they will play in destroying the planet.
This premise (of the destruction of most of the human population of Earth) struck me as being far-fetched even for a comic book, and the execution wasn't really well done. The dialog seemed wrong, and their actions didn't seem realistic to me given what they then knew. Either that or these five have to be the dumbest college grads ever. There was one part where a couple got totally hung up on the infidelity of one of them, and I couldn't see that being such a big deal given the earth-shattering discovery they'd just become party to! yes, I know that people do the weirdest things, but this seemed to be going down the wrong road to me, for this kind of story.
I'm normally pretty good at picking out graphic novels that I end up liking, but I can't recommend this one.
