Project Nought

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The art is great and the subtle shifts in style from perspective to perspective and character to character is both well-done and interesting. Mars, who is easily the most anime-esque character, gets given the full manga treatment occasionally. Ren, more cautious and guarded, is drawn in a way that’s more muted – even when they share the same panel.

Furedi’s art is a joy to behold as well. She excels at use of color and constructs a lot of the tone and atmosphere through her color palettes. The character designs are really fun too and there is a nice emphasis on their fashion that nods to the looks of the 90s and how that might look in 100 years designing fashion based on those aesthetics. The frame work is great and conveys a lot of action and keeps the story moving. This is just a lovely book in general.The first thing you need to know about Project Nought is that the characters are all queer and diverse. I will never get tired of stories like this, where queer people are able to thrive in a queer-normative world. Where everything just fits. Project Nought is set 100 years in the future, and I hope we are headed towards a similar society. The world-building was incredible. The art felt futuristic, and I think the author did a great job making everything look as realistic as possible. I would love to take a step out of this timeline and jump into a new one, but based on everything that happened in Project Nought, I’m not sure if I really do.

This was set in a future society that was queernormative and accepting, and there was lots of queer rep. Multiple characters were nonbinary. There was a m/m romance in the story. There were more characters of different sexualities. Ren has been through it, you guys. First he finds out his mother is going to send him away, so he runs away from home to meet his longtime pen pal, and then, out of nowhere, he’s sent to the future?! Not only is he a subject who is evaluated from all sides, but his time travel program partner is a guy named Mars, who Ren starts to have feelings for. And on top of that, like that isn’t enough, he runs into a person who shouldn’t be there in 2122, bringing up all sorts of questions about how he got there as well. Ren is a survivor!! It’s easy to root for him as he goes through this fray. An exemplary teen graphic novel that will cross interests of sci-fi, queer romance, adventure, and anti–big tech readers, gorgeously accessible." — School Library Journal (starred review) I am looking forward to reading more from the author, and I would love to revisit this world someday. I’d highly recommend this graphic novel to anyone who loves Heartstopper, Bloom, or Cosmoknights! Furthermore, we got to see a great friend group, who were always ready to help and be there for each other. Another thing I really loved was the blossoming romance between Ren and Mars. Here I really liked seeing them getting to know each other, and slowly forming their bond.And they share the same panel a lot because this is a love story. Multiple love stories in fact. Plus, the far future may have many things but what it doesn’t have is straight people (every dystopia needs utopian aspects). For fans of Kiss Number 8 and On a Sunbeam, this debut graphic novel is a fast-paced time travel adventure with a hint of romance that has garnered 1.5 million views as a Tapas webcomic. Anyone who likes graphic novels, lovable teen characters, science fiction, sweet romance and friendship, twisty stories, and a bit of mystery and action. The art was gorgeous, some of the best I’ve seen in a graphic novel. Mars came to life in the drawings. His joy and emotions were so infectious. I felt a little grumpy energy from Ren. They had a wonderful romance, and it was interesting following Ren’s journey from being a closeted kid from the 90s to suddenly living in a queer-normative society. It was brilliant to also see a good mix of sapphic and non-binary characters. The characters are what makes this graphic novel thrive, and I have a soft spot for Mars. He was utterly adorable.

Thank you to Harper360YA for sending me an ARC of this graphic novel in exchange of an honest review. Yet the only one who seems concerned by this is one of our leads, Ren, while the other past kids decided, "Hehehe no consequences for anything we do here 😈," which is actually an equally valid response from their perspective. Except what about the girl from the past who was tragically injured two years ago? The one that everyone was told was brought home safe and sound but whose student host insists that she died before their very eyes? Clearly, there's some dishonesty going on here, and it's not all fun and games and no consequences.Ren Mittal's last memory in the year 1996 is getting on a bus to visit his mystery pen pal Georgia. When he wakes up in 2122, he thinks he might be hallucinating…he’s not!

identities. Here it was really cool to see how this future showed how much the world had changed, and started to accept people with LGBTQ+ identities, which meant they were able to thrive and be openly themselves. Ren Mittal's last memory in the year 1996 is getting on a bus to visit his mystery pen pal Georgia. When he wakes up in 2122, he thinks he might be hallucinating...he's not! The Plague has left a population divided between Elites and Ordinaries—those who have powers and those who don’t; now, an Ordinary teen fights for her life.Ren and Mars are gay, Phoebe is bisexual, Jira is non-binary. Even the baddies are lesbians. It’s a wonderful contrast to hypermasculine superhero comics. My tweenage test reader found the storyline and especially the characters, “extremely relatable, other than the time travel bits.” EDIT: Actually gonna just put this here, I think I was too soft on Mars. I’d genuinely say he drops the book to around 2.5 stars for me, not any lower because the art still carried the book for me, and I liked Jia and some of the humor. But genuinely I don’t think I liked Mars anywhere within the book. I don’t see how he has such fast chemistry with Ren when all I see is him treating Rem like some museum exhibit and not a person for a lot of the book early on. I don’t remember him ever apologize for that either. And him quite literally stanning a corporation and being concerned about “breaking the law” when they’re going to save the other subjects was hard to read. It’s not funny it was just frustrating. He is barely held accountable for any of this plus how he treated Jia about their ex-partner and thus congrats Mars, you’ve made me so pissed in retrospect at your character i dropped my review score by a full star. Thank you to the author, El and Harper Insider, and Harper 360YA, for sending me a proof in exchange for an honest review! Now to get into something I’m more neutral about, the characters. I don’t hate them, but I also don’t love them. I think Phoebe, Jia, and Tané were my favorites to see. Ren was alright, nothing special. I liked the little message at the end with him but eh, not an amazing MC imo. As for Mars, while I found him to get better later on, I think there should’ve been more consequences for him just…straight up not believing Jia. I wish they had stayed a bit mad at him still, or that he at least had not been fully forgiven. Something like “You’re my friend and I still love you, but just know that you trusting a company over me for 2 years stings.” Overall just didn’t feel like any of these characters got the full time to shine. They were likeable enough and drove the story forward, but I wouldn’t say I’m super attached to any of them. For fans of Kiss Number 8 and On a Sunbeam, this debut graphic novel is a fast-paced time-travel adventure with a hint of romance that has garnered 1.5 million views as a Tapas webcomic.