Writer/letterer Sam Roads & artist Kat Nicholson will be launching their kickstarter for this title tomorrow but I was lucky enough to get an early look at what their futuristic tale holds.
Silicon Heart is set in the Welsh valleys about thirty years into the future and tells the age old tale of girl meets droid as the less than happy January experiences the pain of feeling like an outcast in her own life. A victim of cruel bullying in the opening few pages we see the art & writing play off each other as the visuals capture the cruelty but the narrative sees January find the positives where there are none. It makes this all the more involving when the main character is the clear outsider that January is being painted to be……but if anything, that’s part of the charm of the book. I’d like to think I’d be on January’s side but then I reckon we all would cave to some sort of mob mentality.
Things change though as the new resident to the street & student in her school arrives in the shape of Rho, an adopted android or “post-human” as they’re referred to here. While January acts as the outsider of the human characters Rho plays a similar part as a minority in the school……with him becoming a similar target for those damn school bullies.
This all leads us through to a blossoming friendship between the two while the futuristic & shallow world around them just keeps on judging…….something that takes January to breaking point later in the issue. There’s no massive action scenes, there’s no spandex on offer but I’m a firm believer that that’s not the sole reason comic books exist – they exist to tell stories and that’s what we get here. An instantly charming tale of the quest for being accepted by the world and realizing that we only really need the acceptance of the most important people in our lives.
Sam’s writing is well-paced and this first issue is a great intro to the world he intends to create – although that’s not a million miles away from the type of world we live in now. Add to that the artwork from Kat which helps keep things simple but effective, sometimes powerful in their execution. The pages glow with life and it’s not artificial like an android it’s far more than that. Highs, lows and everything in between are captured with a mix of heartbreaking cruelty, uplifting kindness & subtle humour.
Check out more about Silicon Heart over on the Facebook page and keep tabs on the Kickstarter over on the event page. You can check out the creator’s websites below too:
7/10
G-Man
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