It's Graphic Time is a feature where we review graphic novels and comic books.
Title: Crowded
Author: Christopher Sebela
Illustrator: Ro Stein and Ted Brandt
Illustrator: Ro Stein and Ted Brandt
Publisher: Image Comics
Publishing Date: March 26th, 2019
Pages: 168
Genre: Dystopian Graphic Novel
Genre: Dystopian Graphic Novel
TW: N/A
Series: Crowded Vol. 1
Source: Book
Ten minutes in the future, the world runs on an economy of job shares and apps, while crowdfunding has evolved into Reapr: a platform for assassination that's trickled down from politicians, celebrities and CEOs to everyday life and all its petty resentments. A world where anyone with enough backers and the money they contribute can kill anyone else.
Like Charlie Ellison, who up until now has lead a quiet, normal life, until she wakes up to find herself the target of a Reapr campaign with a million dollars on her head. Hunted by all of Los Angeles, Charlie hires Vita, the lowest rated bodyguard on the Dfend app. As the campaign picks up speed and Vita takes out incompetent civilians and aspirational assassins on their tail, she and Charlie will have to figure out who wants Charlie dead and why before the campaign's 30 days or their lives are over.
What made me pick this book up:
I saw this book on goodreads a while back and fell in love with the cover.
What did I like about the cover:
I can't even describe what I love about it. The characters, and the colors, and the title.
What made me read this book:
I love the synopsis. Especially the part "ten minutes in the future" It sounded really interesting and I thought I just had to read it.
Would I read the rest of the series/more from this author?
Yeah definitely.
The artwork is really interesting. The colors are great. I think it's funny that that sometimes the characters look really great and pretty and other times they're completely out of proportion. It kinda fits with the book.
Yeah definitely.
The artwork is really interesting. The colors are great. I think it's funny that that sometimes the characters look really great and pretty and other times they're completely out of proportion. It kinda fits with the book.
The characters to me are just kinda meh. The MC is annoying, self centered, and pretty dumb. I do like Vita, though I feel bad for her, because she has to deal with Charlie. And then there's dog. And I love dog. Every time I saw him he was doing something silly and had the best facial expressions.
I feel like this one was really slow for about half of the book. Even when something was happening it felt kinda slow. Also the pages had SO MANY word bubbles it was very overwhelming to read.
I feel like the whole "ten minutes in the future" and the gofundme type thing to go kill people is really interesting. It was fun reading the stuff from the fuuuuuture.
Overall it was still really interesting and I enjoyed it.
My name is Christopher Sebela.
I was born in Chicago, Illinois, moved to Kansas City, Missouri and currently reside in Portland, Oregon minus a brief 30 day residency in Tonopah, Nevada and three weeks living in Columbus, Ohio.
In the past I've written journalism for outlets for comics websites from indie precursors like Savant to recently deceased sites like Comics Alliance, alt-weeklies (well, technically just one, The Pitch, but my reviews often got reprinted in other papers in the New Times/Village Voice network), art and artsy magazines (The Speck, Kitchen Sink), music review sites (Pitchfork) and weird assignments like heating and plumbing contractor industry magazines (Heating and Plumbing Contractor News – catchy name, right?). I've gotten to interview people like Walter Mosley, Jonathan Lethem, Jello Biafra, Ira Glass, Erik Larson, Charlie Murphy, Bill Burr and Rick Bragg as well as local weirdos and tastemakers who put you on their email lists until the end of time.
I've always been better at making stuff up, so I've spent most of my life writing fiction. I have tons of long form fiction which no one will ever see. Two whole novels of it. They're pretty bad. I mean, not awful, but you know how it is. They live in the dusty corners of my computers. They're novels some dummy wrote. Grist for the mill! Eventually, while freelancing as a graphic designer and quickly noticing that I wasn't super good at it, I thought to myself, "Hey, writing, remember that? You're better at that than you are at this." Tthat was quickly followed by "Hey, comics!" Somehow, now I write comics for a living. Who knew?
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