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scans_dailyEden... is not a comic for everyone and I'm pretty sure there's going to be at least a few people in this community who won't like it. It's an overambitious, convoluted, rambling flawed science fiction epic. And it's frequently exploitative with one chapter depicting gruesome gore and death and another with explicit sex. Nothing is off-limits and people who say... don't want to read a series where a child's leg gets blown off should definitely not read this series.
But it's also one of my favorite comics out there and I'm going to try to explain why.
Eden takes place in a future where a viral epidemic called the closure virus has wiped out 15% of the human population. During the ensuing chaos a group called Propater has slowly taken over the world.
Of course there are various free countries and organizations resisting against Propater control. One of these groups is a multi-national mercenary group known as NOMAD. They're trying to escape from Propater controlled territory in South-America, having just massacred a Propater military checkpoint.
Helena and Kachua are two people who unfortunately get caught in the crossfire. They were in the Propater camp that was wiped out by NOMAD, but they're civilians who were kidnapped...
READ RIGHT TO LEFT, 1 page of a 30 page chapter, four pages of a 24 page chapter, and 9 pages of a thirty pager.
It turns out NOMAD is slightly less morally bankrupt then Propater and the Colonel Khan sympathizes with their situation (his own home was wiped out in genocide). While they still planned to kill them, they waffled enough for Helena and Katchua to escape.
What stops Eden from being completely exploitative is that there's a quiet humanity to the story. Helena is more than a hooker with a heart of gold, and we're going to find out later that Kachua is more then just an innocent ingenue. These are people with their own histories, desires, and hopes for the future. They may have been born in a world of poverty and violence, but they matter. Eden may show the worst of human nature, but it also shows what makes us human.
Then in the middle of the night they're found by Propater, looking for the group who massacred their entire platoon the night before.
Yay they're rescued by NOMAD! Who were also planning to kill them so Propater can't get information out of them... crap...
The kid is Elijah (the closest this series has to a main character), he managed to arrange it so that the two are let go once they make it out of Propater territory. As to why Elijah could arrange this and why he's tagging along with a group of mercenaries, well that's because of his father.
In case you can't tell by now the characters can be mouthpieces for the author, Hiroki Endo. Eden comes off as less of a tightly woven narrative and more of a rant, like it's trying to make sense of the world. Ethnic cleansing and rape is depicted because that’s happening in Darfur right now. The violence is so graphic because right now people in Pakistan and Iraq are experiencing this. Despite the futuristic trappings and the hegemony taking over the world, Eden is still very much our world.
And it's what I like about the series, it does things it shouldn't do and becomes something unique. The narrative is too sprawling to make a good film, it’d be too expensive for a HBO series. I doubt it’d be able to exist in the current comic market either, with the difficulty of making a long-running independent series.
Eden is being published by Darkhorse in english with the fourteenth volume to be released in April. It's on a slow publishing release schedule due to not being the most popular series out there.
But it's also one of my favorite comics out there and I'm going to try to explain why.
Eden takes place in a future where a viral epidemic called the closure virus has wiped out 15% of the human population. During the ensuing chaos a group called Propater has slowly taken over the world.
Of course there are various free countries and organizations resisting against Propater control. One of these groups is a multi-national mercenary group known as NOMAD. They're trying to escape from Propater controlled territory in South-America, having just massacred a Propater military checkpoint.
Helena and Kachua are two people who unfortunately get caught in the crossfire. They were in the Propater camp that was wiped out by NOMAD, but they're civilians who were kidnapped...
READ RIGHT TO LEFT, 1 page of a 30 page chapter, four pages of a 24 page chapter, and 9 pages of a thirty pager.
It turns out NOMAD is slightly less morally bankrupt then Propater and the Colonel Khan sympathizes with their situation (his own home was wiped out in genocide). While they still planned to kill them, they waffled enough for Helena and Katchua to escape.
What stops Eden from being completely exploitative is that there's a quiet humanity to the story. Helena is more than a hooker with a heart of gold, and we're going to find out later that Kachua is more then just an innocent ingenue. These are people with their own histories, desires, and hopes for the future. They may have been born in a world of poverty and violence, but they matter. Eden may show the worst of human nature, but it also shows what makes us human.
Then in the middle of the night they're found by Propater, looking for the group who massacred their entire platoon the night before.
Yay they're rescued by NOMAD! Who were also planning to kill them so Propater can't get information out of them... crap...
The kid is Elijah (the closest this series has to a main character), he managed to arrange it so that the two are let go once they make it out of Propater territory. As to why Elijah could arrange this and why he's tagging along with a group of mercenaries, well that's because of his father.
In case you can't tell by now the characters can be mouthpieces for the author, Hiroki Endo. Eden comes off as less of a tightly woven narrative and more of a rant, like it's trying to make sense of the world. Ethnic cleansing and rape is depicted because that’s happening in Darfur right now. The violence is so graphic because right now people in Pakistan and Iraq are experiencing this. Despite the futuristic trappings and the hegemony taking over the world, Eden is still very much our world.
And it's what I like about the series, it does things it shouldn't do and becomes something unique. The narrative is too sprawling to make a good film, it’d be too expensive for a HBO series. I doubt it’d be able to exist in the current comic market either, with the difficulty of making a long-running independent series.
Eden is being published by Darkhorse in english with the fourteenth volume to be released in April. It's on a slow publishing release schedule due to not being the most popular series out there.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-26 11:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-26 05:35 pm (UTC)A lot of the violence and gore reminded me about Greg Rucka's writing philosophy in Queen and Country. People will die suddenly, horribly, and leave a big mess behind.
I also like how every time Nomad (despite being top-notch soldiers) tries to use their talents to save people or do something decent, they fail miserably. It pretty much shows the author's opinions on violence and how useful war is at solving problems.