.self #1

.self #1

ComiXology Originals 2021

Written by Christopher Sebela

Illustrated by Cara McGee

Coloured by Rebecca Nalty

Colour Flats by Yesflats

Lettered by Aditya Bidikar

Postscript backs up everything about a person into a file ready to be loaded in a printed body that offers one final chance to wrap up loose ends after they've died. When Nat Winters' Postscript gets hacked and her file is torrented, her seemingly perfect life gets set on fire by the tweaked copies of her running around the world, chasing down their own versions of her deferred dreams.

So the book opens up at a scene that makes you take pause and wonder what the heck is going on here? So the story does the smart thing and backs up to the point where things get underway. Nat is a young woman who stars in this story and we get to see a bit of her background, upbringing and the events that lead up to the opening. I will say it is an interesting world she lives in and her husband who is a vastly different person than she is. She likes possessions such as old books and he’s all keen on the latest technology. You have to pay attention to what we learn because it’s really rather important to the story at hand and if you think you can skim over any part of this then your are so dead wrong.

I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does wonders in establishing the personalities that we see. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages introducing us to the characters, the story and the world which they live in we’re left with so many questions and thoroughly engaged by what we’ve seen.

I like how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story begin to emerge, grow and evolve. It’s nice to see how the layers open up avenues to be explored and how these add some nice depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story's ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is extremely well achieved.

The interiors here are a bit more all-ages than I was expecting to see but the further I got into the book the more they grew on me. The linework is nicely rendered and how we see the varying weights being utilised to create the detail work that we see throughout the book is extremely well rendered. Normally I say that I want to see more backgrounds being utilised but the way we see them here enhance and expand the moments nicely. How we see the composition within the panels bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is rather well done. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a very talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a nice understanding of how colour works.

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I found myself enamoured with this story. It feels like a natural progression of modern technology and the pitfalls that could possibly come with it. There is a sharp, natural wit that comes with the story and how we see Nat and her circumstances that kind of makes her the everyman ideal for a tale such as this. This is surprisingly a hell of a great story, though why I’m surprised beats the heck outta me, with a great cast of characters and some delightful interiors. Another stellar reason why you need to be reading ComiXology Originals in conjunction to your monthly print books.