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Review Quotes:
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY -- Bucci (the Nomen Omen series) unfurls a vibrant queer sci-fi story in this inventive and complex graphic novel. Samuel blanks out in 2016 in Bologna when he reads about David Bowie's death¬-only to come to in the year 200016, where the culture and Artzeni's artwork lean into a Bowie-inspired glam rock feel. The current "theme" (voted on every six months) of the post-scarcity future is the "decadent 2000s." Samuel struggles to fit into its new technologies, but he befriends Edoardo, a gender-fluid 18-year-old who wears a dinosaur suit he views as his real body. Just as he's realizing he has feelings for Edoardo, Samuel's phone starts working (via a temporal bug that infects devices deus-ex-tech-machina), and allows him to text his family, friends, and ex-boyfriend back in 2016. This emotional upheaval leads him to go on a journey where his interactions with "switched offs" who shun technology make him question the utopian vibes. (Bowie himself also makes a return appearance.) Atzeni's watercolor art gives a comforting softness balanced by detailed, sometimes chaotic backgrounds. The plot trends both obscure and convenient, but the lovely art and tender feelings of the characters will sweep up readers. This is a clever love letter to Bowie and an affirming exploration of queer desires. (Aug.)
Review Quotes:
"Marco Bucci (the Nomen Omen series) unfurls a vibrant queer sci-fi story in this inventive and complex graphic novel."--Publisher's Weekly
Review Quotes:
"This is a clever love letter to Bowie and an affirming exploration of queer desires."--Publisher's Weekly
Publisher Marketing:
It is the morning of January 10, 2016 and thirty-year-old Samuel is ready to leave the house and live another day of his ordinary existence. As soon as he arrives on the street, he learns about David Bowie's death on his smartphone; the news strikes him so hard that he is stunned, and his are not moments of bewilderment, but hours, days, years, and centuries...he finds himself catapulted across space and time.
He awakens hundreds of thousands of years later, in a society of the future--in the year 200 thousand sixteen--not so different from his own, although he is surrounded by people dressed as dinosaurs, integrated biological technologies and there is a global well-being. Is it perhaps the utopia of the future? Samuel will have to try to find out and find his own dimension in the process, without losing himself.
Red Lightning is a touching tribute to David Bowie. But it is more than that. It's an inclusive and progressive graphic novel that addresses issues such as mental health and gender identity. It is a queer comic that takes us 200,000 years into the future, and makes us reflect on the present by talking about the distant future. It is emotional science fiction.
Five years after Bowie's death, Marco B. Bucci redefines science fiction with a graphic novel masterfully illustrated by the watercolors of the super talented Riccardo Atzeni. Long live the White Duke!
Review Citations:
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Publishers Weekly 07/18/2022 (EAN 9781684970384, Hardcover)
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