Review – Savant
Review – Savant
Published by: Planet Jimbot
Writer: Jim Alexander
Artist: Will Pickering
Lettering: Jim Campbell
Colourist: Fin Cramb
Pages: 52
ISBN: 9781916453562
Synopsis
Introducing Lode from the planet Savant. Lode has gone walkabout around the universe. There she seeks out warzones, choosing to chronicle the lives of the dying.
Her travels bring her to Hubris, a world ripped apart by war. Here, she is recruited by government forces to help hunt down a war criminal. It is a journey that will ultimately take her to the brink of madness. The End of Days itself.
Ground-breaking Science Fiction by Jim Alexander (Good Cop Bad Cop, Ororo: Before the Storm), Will Pickering (Burke & Hare, Wolf Country), Fin Cramb (White Ash, JM Barrie’s Peter Pan) and Jim Campbell (2000AD, Firefly).
Writer: Jim Alexander
We start the issue with a sleeping Lode dreaming of her childhood on Savant waiting for a father that never came home. Lode has been allowed to sleep due to a sleep pustule, in thanks, for saving the memories of a dying daughter. Outside as the world of Hubris kills itself Lode must find a madman, save a planet and find redemption for her lonely mission of saving the memories of the dying.
The stunningly sad, but beautiful script written by Alexander is a welcome change to the usual three-act comics that I review constantly. Alexander wields his pen like a scalpel, cutting through what could be a dense and depressing comic and turns into a tale of war, death and loneliness. One of the saddest pages involves a soldier, CS Brunel, begging for Lode to help him as he is slowly destroyed by a nanite mine. Lode cannot touch him for fear of contamination and he turns to dust, his memories erased unkindly as only death can.
The tale is all the more poignant at the moment with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, showing the madness of war and the need to be remembered.
Artist: Will Pickering
I hate starting an artist’s review by comparing it to other comics but when reading Savant my mind kept going back to amazing stories like Halo Jones. Pickering’s work feels organic with tones of cyberpunk melded with Jean Giraud’s Mobius. Each panel is a delightful surprise as the walls of a casino become a giant parasite, an interrogator is brought to tears from touching Lode’s memories of home and a bed becomes a shield from an explosion.
Overall Thoughts
This comic is operatic in scale and depth with emotional troughs and action peaks that leave you breathless at the end. That Alexander could complete this plot in just fifty pages is a feat in itself. Dark Horse must be kicking itself that Jimbot self-published this as it is a masterpiece in one issue storytelling. This is a fitting end to the story that started almost ten years ago in Dark Horse Presents. If you want to meet the writer Jim Alexander he will be at BGCP St Enoch centre mini Comic-Con on 2nd and 3rd April 2022.
If you enjoyed our review, look out for Savant at Planet Jimbot’s ETSY page
Available in print from Amazon, Etsy, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and lots of other places.
Print: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1174702078
Digital: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1174687984
Contact the creators
Twitter: @JimPlanetjimbot
Shop
Buy tickets for BGCP Comic-Cons in and around Glasgow Scotland – BUY TICKETS
Check out all of our Comic, Movie, Television and Videogame Reviews HERE and our Podcasts/Interviews HERE
If you want to be part of the BGCP community, Join us on Discord, Twitter, Instagram etc then click HERE
As usual, have at our preview of the first few pages to whet your appetite
