Stephen McCranie's Space Boy Volume 1

by Stephen McCranie

Overview

A sci-fi drama of a high school aged girl who belongs in a different time, a boy possessed by emptiness as deep as space, an alien artifact, mysterious murder, and a love that crosses light years.

To Amy, everyone has a flavor. Her mom is the flavor of mint—sharp and bright. Her dad is like hot chocolate—sweet and full of gentle warmth.

Amy lives on a mining colony in out in deep space, but when her dad loses his job the entire family is forced to move back to Earth. Amy says goodbye to her best friend Jemmah and climbs into a cryotube where she will spend the next 30 years frozen in a state of suspended animation, hurtling in a rocket toward her new home. Her life will never be the same, but all she can think about is how when she gets to Earth, Jemmah will have grown up without her.

When Amy arrives on Earth, she feels like an alien in a strange land. The sky is beautiful but gravity is heavy and the people are weird. Stranger still is the boy she meets at her new school—a boy who has no flavor.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506706481
Publisher:	Dark Horse Comics
Publication date:	07/03/2018
Series:	Stephen McCranie's Space Boy Series , #1
Pages:	248
Sales rank:	280,515
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Stephen McCranie is the writer and illustrator for the Space Boy and Mal and Chad, all-ages graphic novel series. Stephen grew up drawing comics from an early age. He eventually earned a Fine Arts degree at the University of New Mexico. Stephen originally created Mal and Chad as a comic strip for the UNM school newspaper.

Editorial Reviews

05/01/2018
Gr 6 Up—Amy, 16, has spent her whole life on a mining colony in deep space. When her father loses his job, she and her family must move back to Earth. To make the 30-year trip back, they are cryogenically frozen. Upon awakening on Earth, Amy must adjust to life in a new place and time. Technology has drastically changed, her old friends have grown up and have children of their own, and everyone at her high school seems peculiar to her, especially a mysterious boy named Oliver. The characters in this graphic novel are a joy—so expressive and authentic, it's impossible not to care for them. Amy's synesthesia causes her to associate people with flavors, which adds dimension to the characters. Her mother is like mint, "sharp and bright"; her father is like hot chocolate, "sweet and full of gentle warmth." The linework is superb, the palette appealing, and the backgrounds dynamic—vivid yet subtle, they deftly illustrate Amy's flavors. The panel layouts mimic the original webcomic version of the book, with long flowing panels or sets of panels that advance the action smoothly and create lots of drama. VERDICT An arresting title with first-rate storytelling and beautiful use of color and design. For fans of graphic novels, sci-fi, or the webcomic.—Kelley Gile, Cheshire Public Library, CT

School Library Journal

2018-04-16
A high school sophomore from deep space struggles to adjust to her new life on Earth.Amy lives with her mother and father on a mining colony. When her father loses his job after a fuel-line accident, the three of them are deported to Earth. Amy is desolate over leaving her best friend, Jemmah, behind but departs on the 30-year trip in cryogenic stasis. At her new school in Kokomo City, Amy encounters physical and social challenges. She is weak from the change in gravity and has no classes with anyone her age, and everyone is constantly plugged into the internet via their "net gear" glasses. Meanwhile, a nameless boy is burdened by an invisible darkness, an archaeologist is mysteriously murdered, and a ship full of humans travels toward an enigmatic Artifact. The premise is intriguing, and the art is evocative, especially when it conveys loneliness, disorientation, and melancholy. However, sci-fi fans may be disappointed by a future in which the tech is all too familiar and uninspired by the passive heroine who mopes around in curve-hugging outfits and shoes so pointy that her feet seem nonexistent. Amy is white, but this future is diverse, with multiracial supporting characters (Amy's "reintegration manager" displays cartoonishly stereotypical Asian features).Readers will find heroines with more gumption, more interesting worlds, and possibly better shoes elsewhere. (Graphic science fiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews