GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Low Vol. 1: The Delirium of Hope
Raves
Rants
Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini’s new sci-fi series Low has an interesting premise and great art. However the highly stylistic art is both its greatest point and biggest weakness.
Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini enter the world of sci-fi with Low. Low offers a world where the sun has gone supernova, leaving the Earth scorched and forcing mankind to live in the depths of the sea. While underneath the surface, the people have lost of all hope of searching for a new habitable planet and resorted to carnal acts, drugs, and corruption. In a pessimistic world is a glimmer of hope that is Stel Caine, whose family the book centers on.
An outcast from another group of settlers discovers the family and makes life horrible for them. All in all it’s a pretty standard plot other than the fact that people live in underwater, which in itself is not groundbreaking either. Because of that, Remender has to make some certain plot changes to make it more interesting.
The pacing in the first half of the book suffers a bit to make way for world building. It’s slow and focuses more on characters. However, every issue heightens the stakes each time and around the second half is where it picks up.
One of Remender’s strong suits is creating great characters and making each one of them their own. It is apparent in Low that each character has been given their own unique voice and development such as Stel, the ever so optimistic mother, and Marik, a good kid that lost his way.
With an ambitious world such as the one in Low, world building is important. Greg Tocchini’s art is beautiful, filled with vivid colors and some amazing visuals. In fact, it is so gorgeous that it detracts from the story and also hampers the readability a bit. The colors blend in too much and as a result makes it hard to distinguish some aspects of the background. In a setting highly crafted in the world of sci-fi, a clear indication of where the characters and background separate is essential to not confuse the reading audience.
Remender and Tocchini have created a great new world in Low. While the overall plot still leaves something to be desired at first, by the end of the book where it has grown and expanded it can surely grab the reader with great characters. Plus, Tocchini’s art is truly something to behold, albeit messy at times.