The Seeds: 06/01/21

The Seeds by Ann Nocenti and David Aja (Artist) was written to be a post-apocalyptic story but in the process COVID swept across the world and the imagery became eerily contemporary.

In a particular city, there's a wall. On one side, technology. On the other electronics are forbidden. On both sides the environment is failing. There are also aliens (as in little gray men) who are collecting seeds (and planting some too). They are here to make a profit on the death of the planet.

The novel follows two humans. One is a woman in love with an alien. The other is Astra, a reporter looking for the scoop of a lifetime. Her directive is to sell papers — even if it means making up the story of bending the truth until it breaks.

The artwork is understandably gritty. The setting is framed against what has been left behind — trappings of our modern day world. Even on the technology rich side, things aren't what they once were.

To thematically unite the three threads of the novel, the panels take a decoupage approach. Dialog overlaps scenes creating interesting and sometimes off-putting interactions. How dialog and location is treated reminds me of The 5th Element (1995).

The graphic novel is also situated on the road narrative spectrum. The travelers are a scarecrow and minotaur dichotomy (99). There are those who wish to save the world and those who wish to hasten its death. Their destination are the wildlands (99), a return to nature. Their route is the remains of the Blue Highway (33) as illustrated by the many old road signs that make up the foreground and background elements of various panels. Summarized Seeds is about scarecrows and minotaurs traveling to the wildlands for cross purposes via the Blue Highway (999933).

Four stars

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