Well, I saw “Clockwork City” on the title so I clearly got drawn to it, because steampunk. Oh, and the artwork looked fantabulous, obviously. But steampunk. And girl ‘droid. Yep.
HINGES BOOK ONE: CLOCKWORK CITY
by Meredith McClaren
Image Comics, March 2015
Steampunk graphic novel
Rated: 
/ 5 cookies
provided by NetGalley
HINGES is a fantasy webcomic, turned graphic novel, about a doll named Orio and her troubling companion Bauble. New to the city of Cobble, Orio must depend on help where ever she can find it, but her assigned familiar Bauble has other interests. And as the two explore the walls of their city, they find that they are not the only new arrivals. In a place that runs like clockwork, it only takes a little disruption to upend a city.
Jumbly Thoughts
I don’t normally read too many webcomics these days, though on the occasion I follow a few artists doing fabulous fanart blurbs on DeviantArt or something. So admittedly I wasn’t familiar with Hinges being a webcomic first, and was only alerted to this pretty nice series through NetGalley. Learn something new, right?
So this volume. The artwork itself was splendid, though I felt the amount of stories added into this particular volume was too little, especially when what I wanted to do was immerse myself into the world of Cobble as soon as possible. With Orio as the main character, though, clearly there needed to be more focus on the introductory aspect as far as characters were concerned.
Some of the characters hit things off rather well! Bauble is a hellion of an ODD, but I loved the mischief in its personality. I’m hoping Orio gains a bit more personality other than “utterly flummoxed,” but at least she becomes endearing by how much she actually cares for the little misfit that is Bauble.
As far as the storytelling went, I’m all for sequential, non-dialogue art, but I do have to admit that certain panels did take me way too long to figure out. In the end, because I spent most of the time looking at the images, I fear I might have missed the whole point of certain scenes. When the dialogue did finally kick in (example, that little disturbance in the street), I was a little confused as to what was happening. That said, I am still rather interested in what happens later on, certainly now that Orio’s in the process of settling into Cobble!
3 out of 5 cookies! Definitely worth the read, albeit it might take some time for me to get completely hooked to it (but as I said, I’m willing to give it a chance!).
Story and Somnomancy 