Curveball by Jeremy Sorese

Curveball Reviews

• 
  Dave Schaafsma

  A hugely ambitious queer sci fi graphic novel that is black and white and specked with bright neon orange throughout and bordered with that same orange, very bright orange, the brightest orange you ever saw on/in a book. I mention that because the orange is one of the first impressions you get of the book. It fits with the overall boldness, and it is also huge, 420 pages.
  
  Notable aspects: very cartoony characters, strong lines, yet a kind of sketchy, loose feel, wildly varied page set-ups, panel arrangements. The book jacket calls it both stunning and sprawling. Sprawling seems exactly right, but it's a bit more overwhelming than stunning for me. Then it is sci fi, too.... but not so much Asimov robotty as Bradbury humane and vulnerable and human. Why sci fi? Oh, I guess because we need to get out of realism to capture the emotionality of it all. It is out there, for sure, original.
  
  Curveball is a rollercoaster love story about Avery, a waiter on a cruise ship, and Christophe, a sailor, from Avery's perspective. Also it is goofily humorous, silly, disconcerting, uneven. The narrative is confusing at times, not usefully so. Maybe it matches the fact that many of the characters are gender fluid? It is not boring, that's for sure, because of all these elements and threads, but I did not always engage with it, truly. Maybe if I read it again or read some more insightful reviews than this here ramble I will like it more than the 3.5 rating I am thinking right now.
• 
  Nate D

  For a story so intricately elaborated through a digitized energy-cycling future metropolis, it's really very human. Doubly so via Sorese's always-fluid line-work and great two-color contrasts.
  
  I actually found the first single-issue of this in a pile of rejected Xeric grants, and it bowled me over. I've been waiting for the full version ever since, now grown to a 400 page epic, with the original 30 pages from the first issue all now omitted. But that was great and this is great. Maybe if Xeric had funded this, it would still exist now? (unlikely, admittedly).
• 
  Steph

  The book jacket describes this as "Isaac Asimov by way of Nora Ephron" and I was PUMPED for that. I was also thrilled to see that Avery is a nonbinary protagonist, and that there are several LGBT+ relationships. Pretty cool to find that without even looking for it!
  
  But the style of this wasn't really for me. The futuristic setting is super ambitious, and I never really understood or felt comfortable in that new world. The art is also very confusing. It's exciting and bold: black and white, except for bright highlighter-orange to represent energy (which is almost always somehow present and visible in this world). But it's often difficult to figure out just what you're looking at. I totally admire Sorese's vision and think what he did is great, but it's probably more enjoyable for people who are more scifi-minded than me.
• 
  Mel

  This comic is super pretty and a joy for the eye. I was excited for every next page to see how it looked. I especially love the neon orange colour that is used for everything technical in contrast to the black/white/grey.
  
  But this was the best of the comic and the story itself was only meh. I do like the setting, though, in a world were energy is on the one hand low and people - by just existing - help built it back.
  
  ___________________________
  Genre: dystopia
  Tags: transgender protagonist
  Rating: 5 stars for the art, 3 for the rest -> 4
  
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• 
  Garrett

  Visually pleasing but narratively weak, Curveball is the story of a boy named Avery trying to get over a failed relationship with a sailor named Christophe. It's a sci fi/ romance graphic novel that doesn't really have good pacing or a good story, and the world that it is set in doesn't really make much sense. I did find the character of Avery to be very sympathetic and relatable, but the story was just boring.
• 
  First Second Books

  Jeremy' line is wonderful -- and his futuristic, apocalyptic world is wonderful! This is a great book about losing and finding love -- and surviving it.
  
  Also: bright orange!
• 
  Scott

  Great art style. Near-future art deco noir and kind of like sky captain world of tomorrow meets a popeye sunday comic strip.
• 
  Bonnie

  The story was confusing, and, actually, the art was a bit confusing too. There were giant explosions and attacks, and it was hard to tell what was going on.
  
  The story was a balance of Sci-Fi apocalypse and a very personal story, as well, and I didn’t feel like the personal story was well resolved, but it packed enough of a punch throughout to keep me reading and not give up on it.
  
  It could have really benefited from chapter breaks, since the setting and time would jump, from one page to the next, and it would take a second to kind of catch up.
  
  The really great part was how graphic the colors were. Sketchy hand drawn drawn black and white with shades of grey and then any technology (like a phone or robot) was orange, throughout (there was a very good reason for this). The edges of each page were a bright neon orange, as well. Very cool.
• 
  Brendan Little

  The neon orange used throughout this comic is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Straight up the orangest shit possible. It’s electric and I don’t know how they did it this bright. The art style is also playful and fluid, looking quite unlike anything I’ve seen before. The character and scene designs are stupid fun, every ten pages there’s an image that I had to stop and really work my brain around. The plot is fairly simple which helps keep the book grounded in the midst of all the fantastic sci-fi imagery, and the characters are believable and lovable. It’s also cool to see that everyone in the future is gay and the main character is of nonbinary gender. You should read this to experience how orange it is mostly. I love orange so much.
• 
  Patrick

  Gets a 1 simply because Goodreads won't let me rate if lower. To "emphasize" some parts it uses a light orange background with a slightly darker orange text, nearly impossible for any one with even the slightest vision problem to read. Story line is extremely weak, artwork is extremely poorly conceived. One of the very few books I have ever been unable to finish reading.
• 
  zoë

  Visuals? Stunning. Storyline? Confusing.
  
  I actually really enjoyed the black and white graphics with the bright orange intermixed. Although at times overwhelming and difficult to perceive, I thought the art was very attractive for the most part.
  
  However, the story was very difficult to follow. The sci-fi setting had no background explanation so much of the plot was hard to comprehend. I did like the fact that the main character was non-binary and there were many queer relationships, which you don’t tend to see in many novels, graphic or otherwise. But it was hard for me to enjoy that aspect of it because I didn’t understand what was going on half of the time.
• 
  MariNaomi

  Each page was take-my-breath-away stunning (such gorgeous production value--Nobrow does it again!); the cartooning was masterful; the world-building was epic. Despite the ambitious enormity of the project, the characters were all heartbreakingly human. Loved it.
• 
  Trevor Incogneato

  crazy. this book has some stellar art to it. prolly one of the most original things i've read this year- felt like I was watching metropolis again or something
• 
  Ruby

  This could have gone somewhere. Unfortunately, it didn't. I enjoyed the dystopian side of it but it was left largely underdeveloped.
• 
  Comics Alternative

  
  http://comicsalternative.com/comics-a...
• 
  Vince

  Sorese sketches a future of perpetual war, a post-technology dystopia. Advanced robots and telecommunications coexist with random electrical storms (think: electrical tornados), air raid shelters and crowded neo-gothic, digitally constructed (presumably nanotechnology enabled) cityscapes.
  
  Amidst this neon and charcoal riot, recognizable and sympathetic characters wrestle with mundane work, finding love, and figuring out how they feel about the uncertainties around them. Sorese's characters exist in a post-gender society. Cultural expectations centered on biology have given way to finding and celebrating compatibility.
  
  Where this story succeeds, Sorese conveys familiar emotion and models friendship and support. Where Curveball comes up weak beyond the length of the narrative is the aggressive portrayal of the future, which takes some time to figure out. The choice of neon orange ink to depict technology is interesting and at the same time hard to view, perhaps vividly illustrating the difficulty experienced by most of us when facing the miracles of computing and technology that surround us.
  
  I'd have enjoyed this more of it were a bit tighter, say 25%-33% shorter. Three stars.
• 
  Joey Nardinelli

  Another random pull off the shelves of my local library. I don’t know anything about Sorese or this book, so I went in 100% cold. I’m not opposed to a cartoony art direction for a graphic story, but this one felt like it was at odds with the intellectual highs it was aiming for with sci-fi, though much more relatable given the attempt at such a character driven narrative. Avery was hard to connect to, not because of their non-binary orientation but because they felt defined solely by their relationship (or lack thereof). Their ex, Christophe, was mildly more interesting, but I think I was the most engaged with Jacqueline given we got something much more akin to an arc in the background with her. I struggled to follow the sci-fi framing — I know it’s meant to be almost post-modern dystopic, but it just read confusingly. If I saw something else by Sorese that was half this length or even shorter, I might give it a skim but this felt so, so long for what it was. The Asimov/Ephron comparison from the book jacket totally oversells this.
• 
  Megan Anderson

  A really sweet and visually arresting book. I love the way queerness and tranness is so naturalized, normal, sweet, and everywhere. It felt like a beautiful world while not being idealized or sanitized. I loved the reading experience and really felt seen by how difficult it can be to let go of relationships, or things even less than that. A really interesting concept as well with the world and executed soooo well with the neon orange. A unique, pleasant, and beautiful read. I think the ending could have maybe had a bit more of a kind of cumulative thesis, but maybe it was there and I just didn’t see it, or maybe the (relative) absence is a thesis in itself. Not really an issue with the book just personal taste I guess. Really beautiful and spectacular.
• 
  Courtney

  There are so many moments that I loved. The characters are great. I love the positivity or frequency of non heteronormative relations and the casual and everydayness that surrounded them. The setting is fantastic, as is the style.
  
  With all this praise I waffle between the 3 and 4 star rating because, where is the story, what is the story? Perhaps that is one of the points, maybe I missed something, either way I enjoyed it. The story feels like it needs more, luckily the characters are very lovable that it’s okay for the story aspect to take its time. I hope that there’s more.
• 
  Cosmo Bf

  A messy-breakup story with some cool but occasionally hard-to-follow artwork. The plot kind of ambles along, things just happen and don't necessarily feel connected, which sure, maybe life's like that sometimes but it doesn't make for a satisfying narrative. The worldbuilding was neat but most of the time I felt like the characters were just rambling on and even by the end I didn't know what the point was.
• 
  Michael

  Cover art and use of orange fluorescence to indicate electronic communications was well done.
  
  Panel art is not my style. Too sketchy.
  
  Story bounces all over the place without clean segues between scenes.
  
  Too character focused for me for a sci Fi GRAPHIC novel. Lots of opportunities missed
  
  Very Asmimov Robot City-esque but not as good and lacking in science.
  
  Interesting concept, poor execution.
• 
  Joshua Williams

  Didn’t realize this was by the Stephen universe artist when I started it, so I won’t make my complaint that like most queer comix right now it looks like a SU ripoff, but the orange was kind of hard on the eyes and hard to read, so while it was a fun gimmick in theory It didn’t work for me
• 
  Will

  A beautiful book, I love the art as well as the use of neon orange throughout the book. The story was cute and the world was interesting to behold and learn as much as we could from the perspective of the characters.
• 
  J

  A decent take on the future with a romance story inside it that's fun and human.
• 
  Ben Mariner

  I felt like that was a whole lot of going nowhere and making a big deal out of it. I loved the bright orange mixed in with the black and white, but the story just kind of petered out.