Reviews 

“Retina” Volumes 1-3

By | August 21st, 2020
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

“Retina” puts a futuristic spin on the crime thriller. Set in 2030, it tells a tale of a rogue cop following a lead farther than it should have been followed. He steps into the territory of a mysterious organisation that is guided only by money. The world-building gives great potential to the story and Philippe Scoffoni’s art is well-suited to the genre, but rudimentary characterization and poor lettering leave “Retina” as little more than the hazy outline of a good lone-cop-versus-the-world story.

Cover by Philippe Scoffoni
Written by Benoît Rivière
Illustrated and colored by Philippe Scoffoni
Translated by Mark Bence

A discrepancy between two ocular identification systems results the victim of a crime split between two different identities, both of which are married. After the first husband identifies her as his wife, Criminagent Milo Deckman believes that bringing the second husband in is merely a formality. However, when the second husband breaks down claiming the deceased is also his wife, Milo is tossed into an underworld where laws mean little, chasing after a truth as elusive than the shadowy figures behind everything.

The world of “Retina” is a solid foundation to build on. A deceased woman being positively identified by two different husbands will certainly have most cops wondering how that could happen. The slightly futuristic aspects are also well-implemented. With the story being set in 2030, our current reality has been slightly and believably advanced. The most prevalent and story-relevant of these advances is the widespread adoption of using people’s eyes as universal biometric identification. Beyond this, there are a number of small yet immersive touches that give “Retina” the feel of a realistic near future, like hyper-immersive virtual reality, and Star Wars-esque holograms being used for in-car communication.

Philippe Scoffoni’s artwork also suits the crime thriller genre well, and is the strongest aspect of the book. His line-heavy style adds grit and weathering to characters that have experienced more than their fair share of hardship and action. His close-up expressions are clear and nuanced, conveying a wide range of emotions events admirably. His color work neatly delineates scenes, and captures the mood of each scene effectively. Each environment the characters find themselves in is unique and filled with detail. His action scenes are dynamic and varied. While the art (particularly of faces) is sometimes muddier in longer shots, Scoffoni’s work remains a major reason to give “Retina” a glance.

While Scoffoni’s art may be able to capture subtlety and nuance, almost every single character in “Retina” is about as layered as two slices of bread with nothing in between them. The two agents of the unnamed criminal organisation are inept, and yet they still somehow have their jobs in said organisation. Their boss is the gruff hard-ass who demands results, gosh darnit, or else! The most frustratingly tired character type is that of protagonist Milo Deckman, who is the stereotypical down-on-his-luck rogue cop who is not afraid to play by his own rules. While this eclectic attitude is established early in the comic, it never feels earned, and served as a major barrier to deeper engagement with the events in “Retina”. The one exception to this is Flora Nesbitt, who has her world turned upside down, and actually has a satisfying character arc. One character amongst many is little recompense though, and it is hard to wade through cliché after cliché.

Adding to this difficulty is the substandard lettering. “Retina” was originally released between 2008 and 2011 in French by Delcourt, with the title “Milo”. and has been translated into English for this Humanoids edition. Translation often means re-lettering a large portion of a work. Regardless of whether the French version was better in this regard, “Retina” has incredibly bland, uninspired lettering. The text is regularly too small for speech bubbles without any narrative reason (such as being hushed speech). The speech bubbles themselves are rarely shaped to suit the scene, and are often just bog-standard round-edged rectangles with short triangular tails, even when this leads to confusion about who is speaking a particular line. The lettering regularly feels so tacked on as to be distracting, as if the words and the pictures weren’t part of one entity, but two competing forces that happened to be telling the same story. There are a few instances of creative layouts, bubbles, and tails, and using police lights or other imagery to indicate when speech is coming through a radio or mobile is a neat idea, but these moments of brilliance are far too infrequent to elevate the overall quality of the lettering anything more than satisfactory levels.

Continued below

There are fragments of a compelling story in “Retina”. The world-building is solid, the initial premise promises a captivating tale, and Philippe Scoffoni’s depictions of this world fit well within the genre. Unfortunately, underdeveloped, cookie-cutter characters and largely lackluster lettering leave “Retina” bland and bleary-eyed.

Final Verdict: “Retina” promises in much from its world-building and art style, but is blinded by underwhelming characters and lettering.


//TAGS | Original Graphic Novel

Jodi Odgers

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