By Dustin Cabeal 

It has been a long time since I've read a book like Crave. I finished the trade paperback of what I assume will be the first volume in one sitting. There's something to be said about a story that entices you to continue reading and not just due to the dynamic visuals of the overly beautiful people that populate the story. Rather because of the pacing and content of the story itself.

While Crave’s story is not incredibly deep it does have a wonderful pacing to it. On its surface, it is a story about social media. The anxieties presented by knowing too much and what Big Data corporations do with our information and what could be done with that information and the harrowing realities of testing that on the populace. Now, that all sounds very, very deep, but since the story is limited to essentially one day of this world or maybe two at the most It is rather fast paced and doesn't take too much time to stop and think about these deeper ideas that it presents. Instead, that's left to the audience to think about in the aftermath of the story. Which is still interesting. It's still a good way to present that information. Food for thought rather than here is my opinion. You get the sense that the creator, Maria Llovet, is not looking to explicitly, tell you about their opinion on all this.

It's one of those stories that have a full world full of other thoughts, other angles, and drama, which can be incited upon it. Which is, frankly, just so damn refreshing in modern comic books. So much of that has been lost with the last decade of politics, just bleeding into comics and everyone needing to pick sides and no longer is a story enough. There must be some sort of political or social message and feeling behind it. Instead of just presenting these worlds where there's this ripe, human drama. And that is something that is not lacking in Crave. Crave has so much drama to it, that it makes it, again, one of the most refreshing reads that I have had in the last decade of comics.

The story is about a small test pool on a college campus. I don't know how this college campus functions since it seems like part British, part Ivy league and part Japanese anime. In which there are class rankings and finals, and it seems like a relatively small and rich elite campus with all these beautiful people populating it but then very American with the way they're dressing and their looks and just their social dynamic. The app “Crave” is released and just installed on everyone's phones and you can ask this app for anything you want. What is your craving? Of course, be that it's a college campus there is a strong sexual desire amongst the students. And so, most of the requests are sexual in nature. The students begin to explore this increasingly and the app helps them. The app tells them go here, do this do that and you will have success and the app is pulling from data that it's already gathered from all the students unbeknownst to the users. They just think this app's amazing. Chlamydia is probably running rampant on this campus though. But that's not addressed, we will deal with the consequences of that later perhaps but there is lots of unprotected sex happening.

Our main character, David. Is in a relationship he doesn't want to be in, with a social Elite. He’s probably a scholarship kid but it's not explicitly said. He has this genuinely nice leather bag that he was given before he went to school by his parents, probably something that they could not afford to give him but did. And so, he is reluctant to use this gift. As events start to pop off, though he breaks up with his girlfriend. He just can no longer do the charade of their relationship. He does not want to meet her parents. He does not want to see her sister's, perfect life, and the dogs and the boyfriend and all this, it's just, it's not something he feels comfortable with. He is a fish out of water in the situation. Upon breaking up with her, he engages with the girl, Alexandra, that he did have a fervent desire for but felt that she canceled on him. Later events reveal that this was a created miscommunication.

As the events of Crave tend to pop off more footage is leaked of students and David, Alexandra, David’s best friend Mar band together with the girl that Mars is interested in, Sophia Hunt whose full name I do remember because she is a bombshell. The four of them must bring down this app and in the process learn and grow with each other. Even though they're fast relationships, there's a just a very quick element to them getting together, sorting out what they like and dislike about each other and then just starting to date. It's believable in this scenario due to how much growth and development is happening around this campus. The Crave app is telling people to jump off balconies, telling them to empty fire extinguishers, to lock doors to, you know, basically produce a mass death event because it will help with other people's cravings. At the end of it it's kind of interesting to see what people will do and won't do and how the app evolves and adapts to the situation as well. Again, it's the commentary without the author's feelings on the subject. It's presented in there for you to take how you want.

On the art side. I mean, the art of Crave must be one of the biggest draws. The art is Gorgeous. It's beautiful. All the characters again are overly beautiful. Like there's not a single ugly person on this campus. Not a single one. One of the main characters. Again, Sophia Hunt is told, she's too beautiful for law school. I didn't even know that the school did anything because no one's in class ever but, they are all gorgeous, they're all incredibly well dressed. It's just like looking partially at a fashion magazine. And then the sexual elements are mature, they're beautiful. It will damn near make you blush. I don't recommend reading it at the lunch table or at work, but, you know, maybe the privacy of your own home or in a car with a sun visor up. It is also very emotional. The illustrations by Llovet are gorgeous to look at. The feeling of the distraught nature of David at the beginning and then the tension between him and Alexandra paired with all the other emotions going on. Even the background characters, it's just clear that these characters are lost in a moment be it emotional or physical. It is a gorgeous book from beginning to end.

The sexual scenes are. Very spicy to put it one way. I have no idea how to articulate that. I mean it's not smut its art. It’s gorgeous, it's sensual and frankly hits major buttons of turning a person on. That is, again, not something that happens so much in comics. There is cheesecake and muscles but it's not real feeling visually. It's just kind of overly sexual images played to one side of the gender spectrum. Crave feels very human with its adult themes and sexualization. It feels like anyone could pick this up and experience the intensity of the sexual imagery and not in a one-sided or raunchy way.

Overall, Crave is rare. To read a comic book like this, or maybe it's just that I'm not reading enough comics right now. I'm sure people probably have dozens of other recommendations, but I think there is something particularly brilliant about Crave. Something that has been lacking and missing in comics and that a writer artist like Maria Llovet is capable of that others are not. This is a refreshing story by a talent creator, that while mature is a joy to read. And it was a full comic reading experience. I didn't feel like I was reading a bastardized movie script or a TV show pilot. I felt like I was reading a very complete comic book presented in the medium by someone who understood and has a craft of the medium. And that is just wonderful. I look forward to seeing if there's more volumes of Crave or of just other works by Llovet in the future as it has just been an encouraging experience to read and digest this story.

Score: 5/5

Story/Art/Lettering/Design: Maria Llovet
Published by Image Comics