Inkspot Fancy

First things first- don't be thrown off by its appearance. This isn't a book for young kids, despite that only books for young kids have ever been sold to me in this tall, thin, hardcover format. that expectation made the overly technical and rote opening all the more surprising, and not in a good way.

Once I got past expectations and into the book itself, it was okay. The art is cute and I love the premise, but the pacing is really weird and the dialogue never really grabbed me, making this feel a LOT longer than it should.

The pacing may be the bigger sin though. The opening is a fight scene which, with more engaging characters and dialogue, might have been solid, but in this case just felt like I'd seen it before. The character I liked best was one who's probably not even in later issues of the series. Instead we have Molly, who's basically Superman if he were stuck looking like a little girl and were surrounded by sociopaths, and Austin, her new pilot who breaks all the rules and is every hotshot character ever.

Having read through this book twice (it's short) I still don't entirely know if I understand what's going on. Austin is a hotdog and the book pays lip service to that being a bad thing, but it seems no REAL consequences have ever been handed out for his behavior, and for most of the time, he gets rewarded. In the book, despite being told not to get familiar with Molly and not to make friends, he absolutely does and no one seems to notice. So, there's a couple options, and I'm leaning toward his intentionally being given latitude with Molly in an effort to give her an emotional connection, since this is apparently something they felt she needed after 20 years on Earth.

I have a feeling a lot of my issues with this book would have been eradicated if this were a collection with multiple issues of the story. But with the odd motivations, the strange pacing and the overly technical dialogue at times, I just couldn't get into this one.