LIBRARY JOURNAL -- Based on a concept and album of the same name by
singer/songwriter Coulton, and written by Fraction (ODY-C), this
first volume in a new series intertwines the tales of two men
separated by hundreds of years: Bob, a worker tasked with charting
the course of the moon across the sky in a futuristic world, and
the more contemporary Robert, an employee at a popular search
engine and social media company disillusioned with his employer's
unethical approach to customer privacy. One of them may or may not
be dreaming the other, or something. What's certain is that when an
accident results in Bob questioning his place in society, and those
questions instill a sense of rebellion in Bob's robot friend
Robogrande, everyone involved is forced to reckon with the
consequences. Artist Monteys (El Jueves magazine) provides
innovative page design, expert pacing, and cartooning that makes a
cohesive whole of a story that switches between lighthearted satire
and heady philosophical exploration as well as centuries-and maybe
even planes of existence. VERDICT An intriguing, engaging start to
a series that excels at raising interesting questions and remains
satisfying even as it falters a little when it comes to providing
answers.-TB
NPR -- Coulton turned to writer Matt Fraction and artist Albert
Monteys, who with Coulton's input have taken some of the album's
words, images and thematic preoccupations and crafted a graphic
novel set largely in a future that will seem familiar to any reader
of science fiction: a corporate-owned dystopia where humans have
become dutiful, unthinking, unfeeling worker bees attending to
menial tasks amid a culture engineered to keep them unthinking and
unfeeling. There's plenty of the kind of clever, characterizing
touches that Fraction (writer of comics like Sex Criminals, The
Invincible Iron Man, and a hugely popular run on Marvel's Hawkeye)
is known for on display: When our hapless main character seeks out
his employer - a wizened plutocrat floating in a tank of goo whose
face is obscured by an enormous visor - the old man offers little
more than vague, chirpy platitudes, adding, "You can't tell but I
promise I'm winking." Monteys draws characters whose features are
are open and expressive, with long, Modigliani faces. The tech that
surrounds them exudes an aggressively playful friendliness that's
meant to render it innocuous and attractive to the people of this
world - and, for precisely that reason, chillingly sinister to
readers.
BOSTON GLOBE -- Hard to describe this one, set in both an
apocalyptic future run by a Google-like corporation and in a
present day that may have led to that future. A schnook named Bob
is at the center of each narrative, like a hapless hero from an old
Firesign Theatre comedy record. Conceived by singer-songwriter
Coulton as a side project to his latest album, it's co-written by
Fraction and drawn with crisp dystopian brio by Monteys. I'm still
not sure what's happening in “Solid State,” but I'm having a great
time figuring it out.
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