Review: Home is a Distant Wish
A group of smugglers take in a mysterious traveller and find that they got more than they bargained for. How will they deal when things don't go as planned...
Home is a Distant Wish by Jurinova on Webtoons is a tangled tale of mystery upon mystery, layered one atop the other like the delicate petals on an exotic flower. Nkapu is a half human, half alien smuggler, operating with a mixed crew of humans, aliens and an android, ferrying an enigmatic recluse and a cargo full of contraband... As if life was not complicated enough for these intrepid individuals, a pink-haired fugitive stows away on board, bringing even more complications into an already convoluted mix.
It soon becomes very obvious that absolutely nobody here is at all what they seem; the only thing they all seem to have in common, if nothing else, is that they all have secrets. And if you are of an impatient disposition, well, tough ... the author is in no hurry whatsoever to part any of the veils. The story proceeds at its own pace, not too fast, not too slow, every moment carefully laid out in sequence for the reader to savour. No galloping ride, here, this is very much a "You WILL stop and smell the roses!" approach. You can zip through it, but you would be doing yourself a disservice if you did so, because you would be missing out on a lot. There are lots of panels with no dialogue at all, in which the images speak for themselves.
Zak Webber
Which they do very well... The art here is rich and engaging, the people a little Manga-esque in style, perplexingly androgynous, for one thing, but much more neatly rendered than the generally slipshod, amateur-looking fashion of typical Manga. The backgrounds are finely crafted with boldly retro-futurist architecture and interiors (think 1970s space opera) and the planetary landscapes are beautifully atmospheric. Each panel is like a watercolour painting with nicely balanced pastel tones.
This is a labour of love by the artist and rewards the reader's commitment. There is no awkward exposition here, the richly-detailed backstories will be revealed to you only as and when they arise naturally in the narrative. There is worldbuilding here, on an interplanetary scale; lots of cool-looking humanoid and non-humanoid races, which we know - so far - not that much about. (Who are the Rahnye? Who are the Keld? How many genders do the Paka have?What is the status of humahns in this galactic community?). Fans of sci-fi author CJ Cherryh - with her love of creating complex cultures and histories, and not spoon-feeding it to you - will appreciate this.
So if you want to sign on for a long, highly involving saga with artwork that delights the eye, here it is. Where the journey will take you...? That is just another mystery.
Zak Webber
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