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I read a couple of issues of this found in the 50p bins in Mega-City Comics, but this is the first opportunity I've had to read the whole story. It's interesting, not least in its formal and thematic resemblance to Japanese comics.
Done in black and white RG:SWT is basically about a girl at an all-girls' school who is plucked from obscurity to be the new female lead in an ongoing fictionalised saga based around giant robot (hardskin) combat. Beyond that rather obvious tale, however, there is some very odd stuff going on about obsession, affection and representation, and also gender and mortality - certain of the characters are genetically-engineered and able to switch sex (a Ranma reference?), but lack the de facto immortality of the less felxible members of the cast. It's... eenteresting. The style is heavily influenced by manga, both in the penciling and the object library (robot battlesuits, school uniforms, catgirls), but its narrative feels a lot denser than a comparable piece of manga - the entire story plays out far quicker than the style would have you expect. Also, the actual information load of each panel is often surprisingly hihg - in particular through the use of a sort of phoneticised English text, which creates an alien air while also being handy for communicating extra info about the rather odd world the reader is kind of dropkicked into.
I think there's a lot to like in this - the likable characters, the high-drama but oddly true-ringing emotions, the way the characters are constantly reacting to he presence or absence of the camera, and some nice uses of repetition and SD. On the other hand, it also has the feeling of a cameo; I guess it raises the same question that an awful lot of "America Manga" does, that of what makes it a more worthwhile purchase than the vast amount of existing materials in which people with tiny noses pilot battlesuits.
Anyone else read this? |
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