eV, vol. 1

Created by Roger Mincheff, written by James Farr with art by Alfa Robbi and Papillon Studio
Published by TokyoPop


Slugline: Beware the Evil Bunnies

The slugline makes me want to sprinkle some of the lines from the Buffy:the Vampire Slayer musical, Once More with Feeling in the review, but I am afraid most people won't get people the reference. For the people who do, just remember Anya's bunny song.

Now that I have that digression out of the way, eV is set 20 minutes and five year's from now. Ev's father is a scientist specializing in nanotechnology and with the arrival of aliens asking for a Earth representative for an interstellar congress. Ev has some issues with her father basically disappearing for 5 years while preparing nanite enhancements for whomever eventually ends planetary representative, but car accident at the last minutes forces Ev's father to sacrifice the last five year's work to save her. But in return, she ends up having to become Earth's planetary rep, and let's just say aliens can be suckered just as well as humans by multi-dimensional creatures beyond anything's ken.

I wanted to like this more, but the pacing of the story seemed to be way off, sometimes skipping past things with barely any explanation, other times slowing down to show us details that don't seem to forward the story that much. I suspect that this was originally intended to be in another format (not manga) simply because of how the pacing seems off. There are some big sci-fi ideas, please I am always a sucker for Lovecraftian horrors.

And if the last scene doesn't scream out "sequel" I don't know what does. Is this the continuation of the trend of TV/Movie types getting involved in comics? Comic publishers have had an influx of Hollywood creators, is it nowmanga's turn? And is that a good or bad thing? I don't know, but in this particular instance, maybe the creators needed to acclimate more to the format.



eV, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

-Ferdinand