Graphic Novel Review: Self by Christopher Sebela & Cara McGee

youngcreativepress

8 months ago

Synopsis:

Postscript backs up everything about a person into a file ready to be loaded into a printed body that offers one final chance to wrap up loose ends after they’ve died.

Nat Winters has finally achieved something like a perfect life. No more scraping or getting by. She has a home, a husband, and a job turning into a career.

When Nat’s Postscript gets hacked and her file is torrented, her life gets set on fire by these tweaked copies of her running around the world, chasing down their own versions of her deferred dreams.

As more of them begin coming to town, looking for her, Nat will be forced to confront a dozen different sides of herself and try to fix the mess they’ve made. But as she tries to contain things, Nat finds out there’s a contingent of Blanks out there who want to hurt her, even kill her, on the orders of a mysterious enemy who is looking to make this identity theft permanent.

Review:

Self had a very interesting concept, the Black Mirror vibes were strong, but it was missing something. The whole story is about Nat discovering herself again and finally doing the things she’s always wanted to do (after discovering the copies of her are doing them first), but it felt like she had no development. The copies of her were far more interesting, which feels like a very harsh insult but it’s true. They looked cooler and had more personality, to the point where I kept forgetting they were technically Nat.

Speaking of the copies looking cooler, I really liked the art style of Self. Every single character design had so much detail and the personalities of all of them shone through. I liked that pretty much none of them looked exactly like Nat because that would have been visually quite boring.

I don’t want to complain too much but considering the whole graphic novel is based on Nat’s personality, she was SO boring. You’re not given much backstory for her but even the bits you do get are just bland. She works in retail and has a husband she clearly doesn’t like. That’s about it.

I did enjoy the explanation of ‘Postscript’. It sounds completely wild and is never something I’d do, but the concept is interesting. I’m surprised this world isn’t more of a dystopia though. The idea of copies of people that have died walking around for a little bit so they can say goodbye is crazy. I don’t know how this would actually help people deal with grief? You’re just going to lose them for a second time.

I’d say Self is an interesting and entertaining graphic novel, despite the blandness of the main character. The personalities of the side characters really shine and the illustrations are great.