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Comic Review: Meridian TPB #1

A lot of the reviews I had seen of this talked about how the target audience was very unusual for today's comic industry - preteen and teen girls. But you know what? I don't care about the target audience. That's for the marketing types. I care about the story. And that is also unusual - it is a book about a teenage girl. And it portrays a teenage girl in a somewhat realistic manner.

Sure, she lives on a world with antigravity rocks, and her father and uncle were big-time political leaders, and a subtle war breaks out in the first few issues, but the main character, Sephie, seems like a real person. She has moments of doubt, moments of courage, moments of intelligence, moments revealing her lack of experience - not just a one-dimensional portrayal. And that makes this book very enjoyable to read.

The first trade paperback, collecting the first 7 issues, sets into motion the political intrigue storyline, an ecological versus industry storyline, and, of course, the main character's coming of age story. None of them are really beat over your head, although I'm not completely sure I understand Sephie's real motivations yet. Maybe it's just me, but the whole idea of people blindly following the teachings of their parents strikes me as a little unbelievable. But, I find a lot of things in the real world unbelievable, too.

The artwork in the book was also pretty neat. The original artist gave the book a Disney-esque, manga-esque look which I thought was extremely effective. The first issue contained a few cheesecake shots, but after that things toned down and it was a much more realistic portrayal of people than you tend to see in comics, despite the stylized look. The seventh issue started the artwork of the former fill-in artist, and it was OK, but not nearly as unique. More generic, typical U.S. comic-book style art. Oh well.

Overall, I think this is my favorite CrossGen book so far. It had enough interesting, unique concepts to keep me interested all the way through, and I got a good feeling that the story was going to go somewhere interesting.