Cory Doctorow’s Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now #2
Written by Cory Doctorow
Adapted by J.C. Vaughn
Art by Daniel Warner
Colors by Scott Morse
Letters by Neil Uyetake
Cover by Scott Morse
IDW Publishing
Cover price: $3.99; Available Now

Have you ever had that gut wrenching feeling when you’re doing whatever it is you do online, that everyone will be able to know what you’re up to? That nothing you do is truly confidential no matter how many times a given website assures you that your information will be kept safe? Especially nowadays when so many news pieces are released stating that some kind of arrest of a certain individual was partially thanks to the “power” of the Internet — our gateway to everywhere. Not that I do anything illegal… seriously. It really is astounding what can be done with it. It might just be me, but even small operations like ordering a book from Canada make me feel like the world is getting smaller and I leave it to everyone to decide if that’s a good thing. “The Geeks shall inherit the Earth” — a popular saying that everyone knows by now, so what if they do?

Being completely honest, I have never read anything by Cory Doctorow. Not his blog, not any of his short stories, but the adaptation to the comic book format caught my attention though and this is my first look into his work. Cory Doctorow’s Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now from IDW manages to capture the geek in all of us, in a primal form, and put it on the page and in issue one that worked wonderfully. Issue two left me somewhat disappointed but I’ll get to that.

Meet Felix and his Sysadmin “friends.” They control the Network and in a very similar fashion with that popular saying, the title of issue two says it all: “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth.” Their rule is about to get tested when an end-of-the-world scenario starts taking place and everything starts to fall apart, beginning with Felix’s life. One of the first consequences of this disaster is the loss of what’s most dear to him which during the book, compels him to try and keep what remains of the world together through the power of the Network. During all of this you have your typical tech mambo-jambo that only adds to the overall feel of the book and the importance of the Network as a means of saving what’s left of the civilized word. When your typical form of government get destroyed, what do you do? J.C. Vaughn and Daniel Warner give you the answer in this not so distant futuristic tale about the power of information. After the attack, it’s up to the Sysadmins to try and define some sort of social and political hierarchy so that the people can organize themselves and once again start living their lives.

The dialogue throughout seems natural and works well to define the characters which by itself is an accomplishment in just 24 pages. Warner does a good job rendering these characters and the world around them, specially since most of the book is influence by the frantic pace of the story, and this is the part that disappointed me. On the first issue, though there still was a feeling of too much content for 24 pages, the story didn’t feel rushed and the way the ending was presented worked. This time, the frantic pace comes to an abrupt halt to make the ending fit desperately, which is a shame. I like the art and Vaughn does a great job writing the book, but the script felt like it either needed a tweak or a few extra pages to play around in.

All in all, I recommend it, it’s a good story with an interesting concept and hopefully that will continue to be the case for the rest of the series.

So what if the Geeks inherit the Earth? Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, I hate responsibility. Besides, we all know that in the real world the “Internets” is a series of tubes, what the hell is that good for?