leahrosereads
Written on Jan 10, 2015
Written and illustrated by: Frederik Peeters
Translated by: Edward Gauvin
First, before the review, I believe this is the first graphic novel I have read where the author and the illustrator are the same person. I think that Frederik Peeters has done a really decent job at both parts of this book. The art isn't as pretty as some of the comics I'm currently reading, but it's nice nonetheless. The writing was exceptional though, and I think that Peeters has done a great job telling this story.
The Cast of Characters:
Verloc Nim - Main character, addict, will not win father of the year.
Conrad Nim - Verloc’s baby brother, works for giant evil corporation (Muy-Tang) as a communications liaison.
Churchill - Robotic ape bodyguard. BAMF award goes to him (probably always).
Professor Woland - Not really here, but seems extremely important. The creator of the AAMA experiment.
Professor Kaplan - Lady seems to have gone a bit crazy. Master Manipulator.
Fulmine - Biorobotics Researcher. Kaplan’s right hand man.
Pilgrimm - The colony’s math and computer whizz.
Myo - Biotech professor. Also a manipulative lady (by choice or necessity, hope to find out in #2).
Dr. Frienko - Colony’s physician.
The mysterious little girl - Mute. Looks identical to Lilja, Verloc’s daughter.
Silika - Verloc’s wife (they’re separated). Her boyfriend is the one that helped her to keep Verloc from Lilja (Silika and Verloc’s daughter).
Lilja - Mute, daughter, kept from her father.
aama takes place in a distant future, and it starts with Verloc already on another planet - Ona(ji). The story is told through his memories, by him reading entries in his journal.
We see Verloc as this really depressing main character, and honestly, not a character I would ever see as a hero. He wallows in his self loathing and despair, drinking his loneliness away. That is, until his brother comes along, and give Verloc an adventure he didn’t really want, but decided to go on, nonetheless. After all, he didn’t have much going for him in his current situation anyway.
Conrad had been tasked by his company, Muy-Tang, to visit an uninhabited planet, Ona(ji) and to contact a colony that had settled there for the research and experiment conclusions of the colony’s leader, Professor Woland. The colony had shipped out to this isolated planet five years ago, and prior to the Great Crisis (some type of economical collapse).
Verloc, Conrad, and Churchill make their way to Ona(ji), and that’s really where the story begins to unfold, both in plot developments and setting. When they reach Woland’s colony, they discover a lot has happened in the Colony’s five years of isolation on this lonely planet.
The biggest discovery is that the Colony’s leader, Woland, is no longer there. She had taken her project (AAMA) and left.
Why? Well, no freaking clue. The Smell of Warm Dust is definitely a book filled with world building and plot build-ups, and character developments. It should have been a boring book to me, but the artwork, and the writing really kept the story very engaging. I was truly consumed with wanting to know more about the characters and where the story was going, and when I reached the end, I really wanted to just pick up the next one and get back into this world ASAP.
However, I knew if I did that, I wouldn’t end up writing out this review, and I really wanted to. This book is definitely worth looking into, but be prepared that it does take a little bit to get going, and with only 88 pages, I think some of the build-up was unnecessary.
But, who knows? I’m hoping that a lot of this build-up gets used in Book 2, and if that’s the case, then of course, it was important.
I’m really looking forward to continuing Verloc’s story. I think he’s going to end up being an unlikely hero, a character that redeems himself, and becomes someone that I will admire and respect. I hope so anyway.