|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||
|
|
Reviewed by Dan Polley The first volume of Earthlight by Stuart Moore and Christopher Schons offers a formulaic starting point: The future, with a space colony on the moon. The volume starts out with a tragic accident, one that introduces one of the secondary characters in the book who helps to add to the over-arching storyline. But the real storyline starts with Damon Cole, who moved to the colony along with his mom, who teaches at the new Earthlight Academy school, and his dad, who is the chief administrator for the entire colony. When Damon reaches out to a female in his class, her boyfriend gets jealous and starts to see Damon as a threat. And that sets up the plot for the rest of the volume. Damon tries his best to get into the girl’s life, at least in a non-descript way. Yet she keeps rebuffing him and her boyfriend continues to plot to find a way to take Damon down. The volume ends with a shocking twist that also served as the highlight. It introduced a new aspect of the plot and gave the series an added layer. Too bad it happened at the end. The characters didn’t flesh out well and felt too much as though they were stereotypes whose next moves could be known without reading the volume. There’s potential there, but the characters just weren’t realized as one of the better points in the volume. Schons’ art doesn’t seem to fit with this type of story. It’s hard to describe, but the art, which should have some sort of futuristic feel to highlight that of the plot and setting, doesn’t, and it brings the volume down just a little bit. Earthlight feels like it could be really, really good, but it just doesn’t live up to its potential. The plot and setting seems like it has been done and doesn’t offer up much new. The characters seem to be stuck too much in stereotypes and the art feels a bit off as a match for the plot. Hopefully the next volume will be better. Comment on this review of Earthlight v1 on the Manga Life Forums. |
6 October 2009
|
||||
 |
| home | reviews | news | features | about us | advertise | privacy policy | contact us |
