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"You know, for an apocalypse . . . it ain't all bad."
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Review by William D. Tucker.
A woman named Aria wanders a post-apocalyptic world with her sword, her guns, and her twitchy tomcat, Jelly Beans, singing French opera, and not having such a bad time of it, really. The scenery is nice. Lots of trees and other plants reclaiming the abandoned office buildings, vehicles, and ruined infrastructure. Aria lives underground inside an abandoned subway car wired up to a power source, hooked up to clean water, and she's able to harvest all-organic fruits and nuts from the trees all over the surface world. Aria has a motorcycle, and a broken down mech she has all but given up on repairing for the moment. Fresh air, clean water, healthy food, exercise-Aria's seemingly got the run of the planet.
Except for the muscle dudes in blue warpaint wielding Kalashnikov assault rifles. Oh, and the killer hordes of mutant attack dogs. And the blue-skinned lunatics, those dudes are heavy. And then there's the soldiers of the One . . . but you'll just have to check that crew out yourself.
Aria's life is in danger, but she is not scared. She's armed, she has survival skills, combat training, and a mission to find an ultra-tech power source to give her life meaning, since she is completely isolated from meaningful human contact during her time on this planet, aside from her skirmishes with the blue warpaint dudes and the blue-skinned dudes and the soldiers of the One. Only the soldiers of the One seem to speak Aria's language, and so we can perhaps assume that the lack of an ability to communicate only contributes to the tension and hostility that regularly boils over into lethal violence.
During one of Aria's battles with the blue warpaint dudes, she encounters a teenage boy who can't quite pull the trigger on his Kalashnikov. Aria spares his life, and she comes to be haunted by his intense eyes. Later, one of these eyes sheds a tear over a comrade-in-arms slain by Aria in battle.
At eighty-eight pages, Apocalyptigirl keeps things simple and to the point, telling an action-packed story of a post-apocalyptic wanderer contending with a dangerous world in the vein of A Boy and His Dog, The Omega Man, or the first Fallout game. The art is charming, colorful, slightly cartoony, and brutally violent where necessary. Bodies are blown apart in shootouts. Limbs get hacked off. Aria is not to be fucked with despite her sunny, borderline twee demeanor. The thing which Aria is trying to find is cool looking, but is basically a MacGuffin, just a device to give some semblance of a structure to the plot. I would've preferred a more interesting object for her to quest after, but it doesn't ruin anything. I was particularly pleased with the ending, which I did not expect. There is an intriguing subtext of a society divided along gender lines, with the apocalypse implied to be the outcome of militaristic hypermasculinity gone berserk, but the emphasis is on the action, and the details of Aria's solitary existence. Apocalyptigirl isn't preachy, but it does have more on its mind than is obvious on a first reading.
Overall, Apocalyptigirl gets by almost entirely on the charm and dynamism of its visuals, which is no mean feat. I read it several times over an evening, and I have since ruminated over its visuals, thinking, "What a cozy apocalypse! I would buy the RPG sourcebook. I want to wander this wasteland myself." There's a lot to enjoy within this slim volume. A lot of comics go on and on, to diminishing returns over time. I like it when everything you need is in one volume, between two covers, no bullshit, just the thing itself.
A woman named Aria wanders a post-apocalyptic world with her sword, her guns, and her twitchy tomcat, Jelly Beans, singing French opera, and not having such a bad time of it, really. The scenery is nice. Lots of trees and other plants reclaiming the abandoned office buildings, vehicles, and ruined infrastructure. Aria lives underground inside an abandoned subway car wired up to a power source, hooked up to clean water, and she's able to harvest all-organic fruits and nuts from the trees all over the surface world. Aria has a motorcycle, and a broken down mech she has all but given up on repairing for the moment. Fresh air, clean water, healthy food, exercise-Aria's seemingly got the run of the planet.
Except for the muscle dudes in blue warpaint wielding Kalashnikov assault rifles. Oh, and the killer hordes of mutant attack dogs. And the blue-skinned lunatics, those dudes are heavy. And then there's the soldiers of the One . . . but you'll just have to check that crew out yourself.
Aria's life is in danger, but she is not scared. She's armed, she has survival skills, combat training, and a mission to find an ultra-tech power source to give her life meaning, since she is completely isolated from meaningful human contact during her time on this planet, aside from her skirmishes with the blue warpaint dudes and the blue-skinned dudes and the soldiers of the One. Only the soldiers of the One seem to speak Aria's language, and so we can perhaps assume that the lack of an ability to communicate only contributes to the tension and hostility that regularly boils over into lethal violence.
During one of Aria's battles with the blue warpaint dudes, she encounters a teenage boy who can't quite pull the trigger on his Kalashnikov. Aria spares his life, and she comes to be haunted by his intense eyes. Later, one of these eyes sheds a tear over a comrade-in-arms slain by Aria in battle.
At eighty-eight pages, Apocalyptigirl keeps things simple and to the point, telling an action-packed story of a post-apocalyptic wanderer contending with a dangerous world in the vein of A Boy and His Dog, The Omega Man, or the first Fallout game. The art is charming, colorful, slightly cartoony, and brutally violent where necessary. Bodies are blown apart in shootouts. Limbs get hacked off. Aria is not to be fucked with despite her sunny, borderline twee demeanor. The thing which Aria is trying to find is cool looking, but is basically a MacGuffin, just a device to give some semblance of a structure to the plot. I would've preferred a more interesting object for her to quest after, but it doesn't ruin anything. I was particularly pleased with the ending, which I did not expect. There is an intriguing subtext of a society divided along gender lines, with the apocalypse implied to be the outcome of militaristic hypermasculinity gone berserk, but the emphasis is on the action, and the details of Aria's solitary existence. Apocalyptigirl isn't preachy, but it does have more on its mind than is obvious on a first reading.
Overall, Apocalyptigirl gets by almost entirely on the charm and dynamism of its visuals, which is no mean feat. I read it several times over an evening, and I have since ruminated over its visuals, thinking, "What a cozy apocalypse! I would buy the RPG sourcebook. I want to wander this wasteland myself." There's a lot to enjoy within this slim volume. A lot of comics go on and on, to diminishing returns over time. I like it when everything you need is in one volume, between two covers, no bullshit, just the thing itself.
