Writer / Penciller / Colour Artist / Letterer: Owen D. Pomery / HC / Avery Hill
Read our review of Victory Point by Owen D. Pomery. Meet Owen on Friday 20th October at the launch event for the book.
Review by Paul Dunne
18th October 2023 (Released: 24th October 2023)
The Pitch: An engrossing science fiction graphic novel about a spaceship's crew, and the end of non-renewable resources. Ada, Haika, and Mallic are on a mission . . . one last mission, before everything, everywhere shuts down. They’re raiding old, abandoned spaceships and wrecks for the (sometimes expensive) parts – and they make just enough money to get by. But living their nomadic, exploring life isn’t sustainable when they can’t afford fuel anymore. The time is coming when the mineral that makes inter-system jumps possible runs out. When it does, the scattered inhabitants of the vast galaxy will be stuck where they are. Everything will be different . . . unless the discovery in the latest wreck Ada, Haika, and Mallic are scavenging can unlock a whole new kind of interstellar transit.
It's been said that really good sci-fi should be about how we live in the future. This is something I probably agree with. It bears up to the acid test of empirical evidence. But could it also be said that fiction in general could be about how we live now? I certainly think so. And seemingly, based on this, I think Owen D. Poery might agree too. Before I go on, I should probably confess a bias. I loved Pomery's last book, Victory Point. And I love sci-fi, so hearing that he was going to work within the genre, I was intrigued. What would he bring to it? Sci-fi is a gift for fiction writers and graphic novelists. It allows a kind of maximum reinterpretation of the world and hypothesis of and around it.
A maximum interpretation of the world.
And Pomery seems to have embraced that in this book. He's created something about how we live in the future and how we live now. In the set-up, he gives us a soft, slow-moving doom, not unlike the one the human race faces now. The mineral that makes space travel possible is finite and its finality is looming. When it is gone space travel will cease, stranding anyone travelling right where they are, forever. I think the easy metaphor to reach for here is climate change. But personally, I felt the sinister shadow of Brexit and the stripping of freedom of movement. Interstellar travel may be possible, but we go ever backward.
Waiting for the Hard Switch.
Pomery creates a diverse future and does so without comment. Or at least, presents it in a way that the diversity becomes the comment. You feel that on the distant Earth (a planet that we must note, we don't see or hear about in this), the racial tensions have been resolved. On Ada and Mallic's ship, they work side by side with an octopus-like engineer and later, share drinks with another engineer, who is like a bipedal owl crossed with a bear. But within the cast's disparate body shapes, creeds, and colours, there is a moral code. The future thrives on similarities, not differences. It's not to say there isn't racism – or a type of speciesism. It's just that the real battle becomes one of class and therefore money. The fingers of crass, ruthless capitalism reach across the stars and squeeze the throats of the poor and the working classes.
The working classes is space.
Not content with controlling the working lives of millions, you feel the corporations want to control the slow snuffing out of exploration, travel, movement. They greedily gobble up as much of the mineral needed for space travel, managing the end and everything that comes after. There's a real sense of the classic hero's journey, too. Pomery merrily and intelligently steals elements from Star Wars and Indiana Jones, but creates a modern, moral imperative to underline the action. It's the lowly scavenger who becomes the one who might discover new ways to traverse the stars, leading her back to ancient civilisations. It's this possibility, this thirst for exploration that causes the most debate between ship's captain and scavenger. Cultural imperative is called into question. Motives are challenged. You feel Pomery challenging you, too. Question your own cultural biases and assumptions, he demands.
Elements of Star Wars and Indiana Jones come into play.
Pomery's art is as wonderful here as it was on Victory Point. The same principles of light are present and he applies them expertly. Honestly, there are few artists that match his understanding of natural light, at least in my opinion. He takes to sci-fi like a duck to water, bringing his clean, smooth fine lines to starships and outposts, only breaking from the smoothness when dealing with wreckage. He works in 'Imax', with gorgeous vertical panels, switching to widescreen compositions when needed. His art does have a dash of Quitely and that's no bad thing. His environments are textured, tangible, heavily detailed, pulling you in. He shows us a universe breaking down, slowly given to lawlessness, as societies tend to when they're either disintegrating or just beginning. There's the feel of the old west about his worlds, where freedom may cost blood. Moral justice takes the place of legal justice. Pomery's characters stick in the mind, making tough choices that we might have trouble making ourselves. They refuse to compromise, even in the face of universal doom and though the sensible, reasoning part of ourselves may disagree with that, there's something in our spirits that probably knows that's the only choice. This is truly working class sci-fi, with a humanist (if not entirely human), angle. This is how we live now, always hoping that tomorrow it will get better.
Pre-order The Hard Switch from Gosh Comics and get an exclusive bookplate whilst stocks last. You can also meet Owen D. Pomery on Friday 20th October at the launch event for the book.
