Crowded: Soft Apocalypse

by Christopher Sebela, Ro Stein, Ted Brandt, Triona Farrell and Cardinal Rae
collects Crowded #1-6
volume one | two

This first volume of Crowded is fantastic and action packed, combining a dystopian future and a comedic, unlikely partnership. Crowded feels like a combination of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and the female cop comedy Heat –  and it also feels destined to become a TV spinoff or film trilogy.

Quick summary: in a technology-ridden future Los Angeles, a crowdfunding platform for assassination called Reapr has a new target – Charlie, and the price on her head starts at a million dollars! The only bodyguard willing to take her case is Vita Slatter (whom Charlie also found on an app), as they face not only high profile assassins eager for the bounty, but also the thousands of Charlie’s backers who would be very happy seeing her dead – and why is that, exactly?

First, the creative team do an excellent job of creating a dystopian but altogether very likely (depressing) future in which technology, apps and crowdsourcing make all the rules. Los Angeles feels gritty but familiar – and its obsession with entertainment and appearances makes LA the perfect city for Crowded. The world feels very believable and immersive, and Sebela and team do a great job of ‘show don’t tell’ with very little exposition aside from explaining Charlie’s situation, and even then they wait a few issues in. The role of libraries is depressing but also kind of hilarious, and feels very Bradbury but in a good way. I also appreciated that Sebela didn’t create made up future slang, which always feels really forced and distracting (unless it’s Batman Beyond, I will fight you on this).

Even though Charlie and Vita are at the core of Crowded’s story (more on them in a moment), its world is a fantastic commentary about technology, mob mentality, what it would take for people to approve of violence, and gun control, while also still bringing us a bunch of humor and character work. Said commentary is never explicitly stated which makes it all the more powerful and natural – it’s just there for the reader to pick up and interpret as they wish. Accomplishing all this in six issues is, I’m sure, a big reason why Crowded was nominated for an Eisner for Best New Series.

Charlie and Vita are very different characters in the true spirit of a buddy comedy. It seems from a lot of Goodreads reviews that a lot of folks didn’t like Charlie and that influenced their opinion of the book. Charlie is not supposed to be likable – that’s the point! Creating a sympathetic but dislikable character is a hard line to walk, but possible – most of the characters on Veep and Arrested Development succeed at it. 

Vita, on the other hand, is your no-nonsense bodyguard and I live for her awesome haircut and consistently enraged/exasperated expressions. Both Charlie and Vita have secrets and reasons to be dislikable, but I have to say that between the two, Vita is true star of the story – we have seen just enough heart and grit from her to be invested.

Stein and Brandt’s line art is absolutely fantastic, particularly Charlie and Vita’s expressions, as well as one tiny bug-eyed dog – the art delivers so much of the humor in the book – the strip club bathroom scene is an absolute highlight. The art reminded me a lot of Dave Baldeon’s expressive, flexible style from Domino but the colors have less of a glossy finish. The violence isn’t overly gory, but there’s a sense of danger and grittiness in the gunshots, blood and at one point charred corpses. This being Los Angeles, everyone is very fashionable and  there is a strong sense of design that adds to the tight world building going on. Farrell’s colors really pop and I liked the soft gradients used for blushing, though I thought Charlie’s pink skin tone was a bit weird. Also sometimes the lettering was difficult to read, but after a few pages I adjusted to it.

Volume one ends with a bang and sets things up well for the next arc – I appreciate that we’re going to learn why Charlie is being targeted, since the mystery aspect is starting to run out of air. What isn’t running out is my joy towards this series and my excitement to read more.