Pages

Monday 9 February 2015

Alex + Ada, Volume 2 Review (Sarah Vaughn, Jonathan Luna)


Awwwwwww!

Alex and Ada - awwwwwww!

I’m not the mushiest guy who goes for romance stories often but - awwwwwww! Seeing Alex and Ada fall in love in this book was so sweet! 

Alright, alright, that’s enough! 

Set in the near future, life-like androids and service robots have proliferated society. They’ve made life easier but some droids, after becoming sentient, went nuts and started killing humans. Fear has begun to spread amongst the population of these new sentient robots and laws are hurriedly passed making it illegal to “unlock” them and turn them into freedroids. 

Alex is a young man whose rich granny buys him an android called Ada. Uncomfortable with her obviously robotic personality, he decides to give Ada free will, unlocking her so that she awakens – its sci-fi Pinocchio! Now, Alex is introducing Ada to the world – but the government is closing in on anyone who tries to circumvent the new droid laws, meaning them. What will happen to Alex and Ada now? 

Volume 2 is essentially a simple love story: boy meets girl, they court, they fall in love, they argue and break up, they reunite, etc. – very formulaic. And yet the setup feels fresh because Ada’s a droid. She’s also too adorable as she figures out how the world works, tasting food and smelling smells for the first time. Seeing her try to subtly woo Alex was very sweet as she’s almost child-like in her approach, and seeing the two become closer… yeesh, listen to me! 

I really enjoy Jonathan Luna’s artwork. It’s very elegant and simple with clean lines and there’s lots of space in the panels. It feels futuristic for being so uncluttered, from Alex’s paperless office, to his almost Feng Shui home, it’s all so… calm-looking and advanced. Even the series itself is set out to be as lean as possible – there’s only one more volume planned before the end of Alex and Ada. 

Volume 2 is a well-paced story that glides along effortlessly, totally holding the attention, and the love story between Alex and Ada is both compelling and convincing. It’s sci-fi but it’s an emotional read too, which is unusual for the genre. Vaughn fleshes out the world further, pushing Ada out into the cyber and the real world, leading to a broader outlook for the reader on how everyone else views Ada besides Alex, as well as more exciting, non-romantic scenes for variety. 

I liked the first volume of Alex and Ada a lot but I really loved the second. It’s an extremely well-conceived and executed comic that even made this non-fan of romance into one (temporarily), and that’s pretty damn powerful! 

Awwwwwww!

Alex + Ada, Volume 2

No comments:

Post a Comment