Written by: Christopher Sebela
Art by: Ro Stein
Published by: Image Comics
Release Date: August 15th, 2018
In the world of Crowded, there seems to be an app for just about everything. You’ve got your Uber and Lyft knock offs, an app for walking dogs, baby sitting your kids and even an app for putting a hit out on someone you don’t like. That app is known as Reapr and Charlotte Ellison has unfortunately found herself the target of someone’s “campaign” to be rid of her. Having escaped death, Charlotte does the only sensible thing and picked up her phone. With the help of an app known as DFEND, she meets with her new bodyguard, Vita Slatter in the hopes of surviving for the next month and the campaign against her ends.
While you’ll be wondering what she did to have a campaign against her, I just want to say that Charlotte is a #$%&ing bitch. It really comes as no surprise that people want her dead so badly but there’s certainly an overarching mystery about why her campaign was backed by so many people and it seems a whole lot less innocent than she tries to make it seem. With that being said though, she remains an incredibly likable, adorable character and the same can be said for Vita whose is just a little more “generic cookie cutter” than her co-star. Vita is just a bodyguard with a shady past and a 1.4 rating on DFEND. She only has two rules and only kills if necessary because she doesn’t want to deal with the paperwork.
I can’t quite place what it is exactly but Crowded reminds me of Cowboy Bebop in a way. Vita’s style just screams “Spike Spiegel”. Her car is even an old beater much like Spike’s Swordfish. Artist Ro Stein has crafted a wonderfully detailed world. The book feels very modern but the style and little details help remind the reader that it takes place slightly further along our timeline. It’s Triona Farrell’s beautiful color work that really makes the artwork pop with it’s vibrant style however.
Crowded is a very cool and fun concept with a style to match. It takes the term “there’s an app for that” to the next level. The book almost feels real given that a portion of today’s society is constantly connected and tethered to a device in some way, whether it be social media or some other app on our smartphones. Like using Yelp to check a restaurant’s quality, Vita’s future jobs rely on her reviews from surviving clients and like any potential client, Charlotte wants to know why it’s so low. It’s biggest issue is the fact that Charlotte and Vita’s relationship is a generic one. That doesn’t really hold the book back much at all though as it’s still a great read and staging point for future books.
