cover image Habitat

Habitat

Simon Roy. Image, $9.99 trade paper (96p) ISBN 978-1-63215-885-7

First serialized in Image’s anthology comic Island, this unpredictable science-fiction adventure is long on imagination, if short on plot and character development. In a vast interstellar spaceship, something has gone very wrong. Generations ago, an accident destroyed key systems and the ship’s security guards seized control. Now the original crew’s descendants have devolved into a barely functioning feudal system, clambering among the overgrown ruins of their ancestors’ enormous machines. Hank Cho has worked his way up from the cannibalistic peasantry to an elite security team when he stumbles into a revolutionary movement to save the Habitat from collapse. With a spectacular European-influenced art style that recalls classic Heavy Metal illustrators Moebius and Geoff Darrow, Roy (Tiger Lung) draws intricate, eye-popping environments; the upswept “horizon” of the ring-shaped ship is particularly amazing to look at. The hurried story doesn’t have much time to develop, nor do the hard-bitten characters, but this guy can really draw. (Nov.)