Southern Cross Volume 1

Becky Cloonan goes space noir, giving her protagonist a sci fi tough guy bluntness as she investigates weird occurrences on the spaceship taking her to the moon Titan to pick up her dead sister's remains. It aims for atmospheric and mysterious, but I found myself drifting off into space (and sleep) instead of engaging thrusters.

I already have the next volume checked out, and I was on the fence about plowing ahead despite my misgivings, but a little research turns up that it is not the conclusion of the story, and instead the series went on hiatus years ago somewhere in the middle of what would have been the third volume. Time to cut losses and abort mission.

A trippy, sci-fi mystery set on a Titanic like cruiser (in space), Southern Cross is one genre bending graphic novel set around the character Alex Braith, a passenger on the freighter Southern Cross who is on her way to retrieve the remains of her suspiciously deceased sister from the mining colony in which she worked. She wants to know why her sister died and it turns out that the Southern Cross is exactly the right place to start asking these questions, especially when strange occurrences start happening. Cloonan and Belanger create an amazing level of tension as (strange) things start to happen on the ship. Kuddos to them.

I really enjoyed the setting. It's almost entirely set on a space freighter, and it really and truly does feel show more like a freighter. It sort of reminded me of one my favorite movies, Alien. There's a certain level of grittiness applied to the imagery that works. Towards the end of the volume, the story takes a turn in the direction of say something that is more akin to the genre the new weird or dare I say, Lovecraftian horror. It wasn't too unexpected but still it was intriguing and thrilling enough to make me what to pick up vol.2. show less

This series is crazy good. The art is breathtaking and the story is fast paced and fun. Highly recommended if you like sci-fi, mysteries and/or bad-ass lady protagonists.

I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this one. Murder mystery, space travel, malfunctioning gravitronic engines, artifact smuggling, and alien invasion make for a pretty smart story and a fairly complex plot.

Artwork was just so-so, unfortunately, but I will definitely be looking for the next volume in this series.