Wake Vol. 4 : The Sign of the Demons

A French graphic novel saga features Navee--a beautiful human girl living alone on a lush, post-nuclear Earth--and her adventures in a universe of varied forms of intelligent life.

Adult/High School-Two stories from an ongoing series of French graphic novels are combined in this single, satisfying volume. The action centers on Wake, an enormous armada of space vessels carrying countless intelligent species as they search for habitable worlds to colonize. Among them is Navee, a feisty, free-spirited, and powerful girl who happens to be the only known representative of the human race. In the first story, she and a motley crew of operatives find that attempts at contact with a medieval planet have been compromised by politics on both sides. The second installment follows a group of terrorists who attack Wake in order to draw attention to the living conditions in its slums. Fans of Star Wars will find themselves on familiar ground here, in a work rich with spaceships, aliens, adventure, and humor. Throughout, good and evil remain comfortably separated, yet the line between them is blurred just enough to keep things interesting. The artwork is vibrant, lush, and often meticulous in its representation of the intricacies of Navee's world. The complex relationships and politics can be confusing at times, particularly for readers who are entering the series midway, but those who stick with it will be rewarded with fun, thoughtful science fiction. At times, Navee's outfit of choice is little more than a leather bikini (which is still more modest than her garb in earlier collections).
Douglas P. Davey, Guelph Public Library, Ontario, Canada
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Morvan and Buchet offer a full-color sci-fi volume containing two stories, both dealing with the Wake universe, a convoy of spaceships from various civilizations seeking new planets to inhabit. On one planet the Wake explorers discover a human girl, Navee, who was abandoned and raised by robots. The convoy takes Navee on board and trains her. Acting as Wake's special agent, Navee is front and center in both stories. During the first, she sets out for the planet of Hurumaru, which resembles medieval Earth and discovers the Escots, a nation of serfs revolting against their world's dominant races. In the second story, the Ftross, a people oppressed in the convoy, begin committing terrorist acts as a way of retaliating, and eventually take Navee as a hostage. In this tale, Morvan sympathetically portrays the Ftross. He seems to want to create a greater understanding for our planet's neglected populations in the process, as well as for the inhabitants of Wake, a United Nations of space travelers. This work will mostly appeal to teenagers-like Navee, who appears to be about 16. She's tough but compassionate, as her understanding of the Ftross illustrates. Morvan also injects humor into his stories with good-natured antagonism surfacing among the convoy's inhabitants, including between Navee and her assistant, Snivel. Buchet's artwork consistently impresses; his somewhat cartoony, detail-filled style draws on European and American influences. The draftsmanship's neat, precise quality and vibrant coloring, and the book's large size, which allows 10 or 12 panels to fit easily on a page, help the story move briskly.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.