Junk Rabbit #3 // Review
There are those in power who are actively seeking out information pertaining to a certain subversive element outside the dome of the city. Detective Chela Omina peels back another layer of the mystery from within the archive as information is passed between people outside the realm of power in Junk Rabbit #3. Writer/artist Jimmie Robinson continues his dystopian tale with a hard lean into satire in another fun, darkly humorous sci-fi outing. Though there is definitely humor in its heart, Robinson’s story is focused on a very heroic and revolutionary tale of rebellion against a corrupt system.
When inquiring about the history of Dome Ruler Richard Masters, Chela Omina is having some difficulty getting basic biographical information. He’s a powerful guy, so a lot of his information is going to be folded in on itself. Chela’s on the right track, though. Meanwhile, outside of the Dome in the Sink, there’s a woman who knows way more about the history of the state of things than most people do. She’s in the midst of telling her son about it when a mile or so away, the authorities arrive. They’re looking for the subversive known as Junk Rabbit. Things are about to get a whole lot worse.
Robinson is spending a great deal of time world-building with this issue. There’s a strikingly complex dystopian vision that Robinson is trying to deliver to the page, and he’s actually doing a pretty good job of it. The backstory on the world of Junk Rabbit is interesting enough on its own that it doesn’t really need to be tied into the main story all that much, but it would help the issue from seeming like a history of things that didn’t happen. It’s a fascinating idea for a world far worse than our own, but it should be integrated more with the central story.
Robinson’s art continues to value detail over form and motion. Poses seem kind of weird and awkward even as they feel remarkably well-rendered on a nuts-and-bolts level. It all looks good, but so little of it feels organic. This is perfectly okay in the clean, antiseptic world of the Dome, but the cleanness of everything really kind of hurts the atmosphere of the squalor of the Sink. It’s all rendered with such precision that even the grit and muck and grime of a post-apocalyptic hellscape appears a bit too tidy. It’s a distraction.
Robinson builds a really fun and compelling world for Junk Rabbit, but so little of the world is actively or directly involved in the concerns of the main characters. As of the third issue, there still isn’t a strong enough connection between the main characters and the history of the world, so it feels more than a little flat as a result. It’s too bad that there isn’t more of a sense of connection between the fascinating world Robinson is building in the background and the interesting characters that Robinson is working with in the foreground.
