As it turns out, iCandy is a book that is well-named. Because while the art here is beautiful, the story is thus far a little bit lacking. Abnett and Lanning try something interesting in keeping us largely outside the protagonist's head at first, showing his withdrawal from the real world, but it doesn't quite ring true, and though they impart all the information needed to let the reader know what's going on I'm not sure they succeeded in the more important job of making me care about the characters. Whatever the book lacks in substance so far, however, it does have plenty of style, largely thanks to the stunning artwork of Kalman Andrasofszky, who conveys the idea of two realities converging on the comic book page, which is never an easy task.
iCandy is a story of a videogame character come to life, but it has little in common with videogame adaptations like Street Fighter or Megaman. Instead, Abnett and Lanning's world is set in a sort of real world setting, one that is built upon a drab and depressing existence. It's interesting to note that the lead character doesn't speak at all in the first half of the book, quietly suffering abuse from his teacher, his parent and his peers and seemingly disconnected entirely from reality. The picture we get is of a kid who suffered a tragedy and retreated into the world of videogames, and we see how an uncaring world treats him.
The trick with something like this is to draw the reader into this dreary world and capture their attention, rather than just depressing them and making them see the whole thing as rather pointless, and it's here where Abnett and Lanning stumble. Matt seems not just distraught by his sister's loss but actually mentally disturbed, and it doesn't quite ring true that he "wakes up" so easily when presented with a videogame character come to life. I'm similarly unconvinced by the lack of sympathy shown to Matt by both his teacher and his mom. Though Matt's behavior is certainly not normal, the extenuating circumstances that caused it would seem to require therapy and understanding rather than just outright anger, and I find it hard to believe that one of the authority figures in his life wouldn't figure that out.
While the story didn't completely resonate with me, however, the artwork definitely does. Andrasofszky has a style that is eye-catching and unusual, and it reminds me of the similarly striking work of Tsutomu (Wolverine: Snikt!) Nihei or Paul (100%) Pope. The colors have a sort of washed-out, hyper-real look to them, and I'm impressed by the way that Andrasofszky makes the videogame character pop off the page with sort of neon, brighter colors, giving the impression of an animated character existing alongside real life. Given that the character and background both exist in the same two-dimensional comic medium, that's quite an impressive feat. His action storytelling is likewise impressive, and I loved the way he gives a sense of movement and grace to the videogame character, reinforcing her alternate reality existence.
It's possible as this book develops that I'll become more interested in what happens to the lead character, and certainly the creators are just at the tip of the iceberg as far as revealing what's going on in the plot. Whatever happens with the story, however, I'm sure that iCandy won't be the last we see of Kalman Andrasofskzy, who makes an impressive splash with this first issue.
