This is a difficult review to write. I really enjoy everything that Marzipan Physics does. The origin story and the world are very familiar to themes found in Blue Monday or Hopeless Savages. The art is Mike Allred Mad Man inspired with its own great style. I see what it is and what it’s going for, but I have to fully admit that it’s not quite there. Even with all these great elements, it’s way off from being as iconic as the aforementioned properties. Our main character shares the name of the book. That is to say that our main character’s name is Marzipan Physics. The issue opens up with the success of the Large Hadron Collider. Marzipan thinks back on the work she’s done to get it that far and then we read an email about a work party and band performance. The band is of course Marzipan’s and her two friends that she works with.
While at the Tiki-Mama, Marzipan’s parents call her on some future space tech version of Skype. She heads back inside and must fess up to her friends and inform them of her backstory that we then read. They ask if she has any other secrets and she says yes… she needs their help saving the planet.
As I said, I like everything this book is doing, but it’s rough. The opening is a bit confusing because it almost seems like a daydream at first. There’s a few ways the info couldn’t have been presented so that it wasn’t so confusing, but instead giant thought bubbles are how we’re filled in. That’s the other strange thing, there’s no dialogue or narration until they’re at the Tiki-Mama. Though the dialogue is the roughest part of the story. It’s mostly exposition and none of it comes across as naturally spoken by the characters.
There’s an overall pacing problem as we quickly run through the opening, spend very little time with the friends and then rush into Marzipan’s backstory which didn’t vibe very well with the rest of the issue. It was still interesting and clever, but it wasn’t well-balanced within its own tale or the rest of the issue.
I really enjoyed the art. I can see others having problems with the way it’s colored, the ladies in the story all have patterns layered on their characters and the pattern doesn’t move or bend like clothing, but I find that to be more of a style choice than an artistic flaw. There’s a lot of solid coloring which matches the thick line work of the art. There’s a Saturday morning cartoon feel to the art style, but it works for the story and gives the issue a nice style. It’s not quite Allred’s style, but that’s really the closest thing I could compare it to.
There’s more than a few problems with this first issue of Marzipan Physics. The story and dialogue need some work, but the setting, the characters and the art are all heading in the right direction. There’s nothing else like this book in the world of comics which is another reason I’m a fan of it and will be back for the second issue of Marzipan Physics.
Score: 3/5
Marzipan Physics Creator: Jennifer Ross Self-Published Price: $5.00 Format: Print Website