Artificial #1 // Review
Clara is quite excited. She’s got a date with someone new. He seems like a nice guy. There are flowers. There is passion there is strong physical chemistry. Things seem to really be progressing into a seriously intimate moment. And then her free trial is up. And she has to pay for the full version if she wants to extend into anything more serious. And honestly...she just might consider doing so in Artificial #1. Writer/artist Maria Llovet opens a whole new four-part mini-series that looks like it might be going in a satisfyingly prdictable direction after the end of its first quarter.
Before the date, Clara got a text from Mateo. he wanted to talk. She didn’t respond. She DID have a date, though. A simple date. Nothing as complicated as things were likely to have been with Mateo in any case. Granted--she didn’t exactly have the full package with him, but when she begins to discuss it later-on with her friends...it’s something that she’s really considering. And so long as she’s considering it...it IS expensive, but it’s so completely tailored to her. She just wants a romantic connection. What could possibly go wrong?
Llovet keeps the essence of the story almost annoyingly simple. All of the foreshadowing gets indelicately hammered into place as the basic elements of the plot are built without any real sense of nuance of subtlety. It’s so very, very clear where things are going tobe going over the course of the series. That being said, the simplicity of Artificial might actually be a kind of strength given the primal nature of what she’s exploring. There’s no need to try to obfuscate the central themes of fantasy versus reality in romance and true human connection. It’s simple, but there’s a primal sense about it that feels quite satisfying.
Perhaps the lack of nuance in the story might have been a bit less glaringly felt were it not for the fact that Llovet’s art style seems to suggest so much more than simple storytelling. the sketchiness of Llovet’s rendering really feels as though it’s capable of so much more that might explore the murky uncertainty at the heart of any human emotion. There’s so much depth in Llovet’s sketchy renderings that suggest something much mroe messy and complicated than her very, very simple and obvious script. It’s a bit frustrating.
It shoudl be noted that this IS still a very early moment in the series. There’s plenty of room for coplexity that may begin to reveal itself over the course of the remaining three issues of the series, but it’s going to be difficult to truly bring it out without completely outpacing the slow and gradual build-up of the first issue. Things are going to have to start moving much more quickly if the series is going tobe any more than it has appeared to be in the first issue. Clara DOES seem like a relatable character. That’s a very good foundation.
