A descent into madness.
Creative Staff:
Story: Zac Thompson
Art: Jen Hickman
Colors: Jen Hickman
Letterer: Simon Bowland
What They Say:
As she reels from a break-up with her phone, Catrin’s life spins out of control. Everything about her existence was connected to her partner. Now she has no money, no ID, and no way to engage with the world. She’s drifting alone in a sea of connection, except for the pair of disembodied eyes watching her…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With Zac Thompson having set some good expectations in the first issue, the second one continues the descent of our lead as she struggles with just how radically her life has changed. It’s the latest event in the series that’s completely up my alley in the same way that the film Her was while working its own different approach. The first issue was definitely a dialogue-heavy opening installment and this one doesn’t shift gears at all in that regard, though the dialogue is narration with herself. Which isn’t the easiest thing in the world to illustrate but Jen Hickman is able to draw it out wonderfully. I adored a bunch of their prior work and especially the time on the fantastic Moth & Whisper series from this publisher. That book was a visual delight and I see Hickman working something similar here to a degree.
With it moving past the first day of Catrni’s loss of Rhion, she’s spiraling in all sorts of different ways at this point, and chronicling it is a tough thing to take in at times. As she’s basically removed herself entirely from society, looking to minimize food intake and more, the loss of her phone, all her work, and so forth means she can’t even get something simple anywhere because she’s not recognized. She might as well not even exist in this society without the ident and ways to pay for things. Watching her being forced to reconnect even a little with old school tech – like plastic cards – isn’t easy but she has to be able to function in a basic way. But as she gets or uses such things, displaying a paper birth certificate for instance, it’s almost like everyone is mocking her or deriding her over it because it’s just so silly in this modern world to exist like this.
That in and of itself is engaging enough to watch unfold but the team here has to take Catrin further down the bad path of things. It’s when she goes to reconnect with her lost piece of herself and getting checked out for the connection that has gone dead that we really get the sense of things even more. It takes a while for the tech to catch on that it was a sudden disconnect, which requires a different approach, but seeing the story of someone else that had a lifelong partner like Catrin did that’s still happily in love after fourteen years is illuminating in how this world works. But it’s a cruel thing to learn as he goes on as Catrin quietly suffers, which leads to greater suffering when she’s forced to the right department and not only has to confront what her past with Rhion was like but be rejected all over again when they can’t do a refund or a reconnect with her lost love.
In Summary:
There is a lot to take in with this issue and when combined with all the details of the first we’re getting an interesting world realized, or at least this particular slice of it. It’s definitely solid and intriguing as a standalone issue but I imagine it will definitely flow differently when taken in full in a collected edition. What we get here further showcases Catrin’s slide into despair and all the struggles in trying to get to a place she wants to be but is further out of reach. It’s heavy on the dialogue and narration to good effect and the layouts and artwork help to really tell the story of what she’s going through in really great ways, especially some of the sparseness of it all that reflects where she’s ended up.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: AfterShock Comics | ComiXology | Kindle
Release Date: September October 7th, 2020
MSRP: $3.99