Page 45 Review by Mark
Born to a paranoid, over protective, ex-military father and a mother with tendencies to retreat to the safety of her imagination, Rachael looks after her sisters as best she can. Brigham's still away, locked up after the kidnapping of his own family, just about to get out though. Emma's just got a good commission so they can move to a better part of the city.
"Weird place is Anvard. Like any city."
Under a dome of lost, crumbling technology sits Anvard, a busy metropolis with no sky, no day or night, hosting many different races and tribes. Re-entering its base walkways is Jaeger, the Finder of the title, armed only with his considerable charm and looking to pick up from where he left off.
"What you do… what you are... is a form of divination."
Even though the city is an important player - in fact it's the second character that we're introduced to - the neo-Bladerunner atmosphere doesn't detract from the human side. There's enough Terry Gilliam in there with the Ridley Scott/Philip K. Dick.
McNeil draws some of the most sensual flesh I've seen in a long time - not overtly sexual just very warm, very human with great grace and poise. The politics between the different tribes (each with their own role in society) can, initially, be a little confusing, and the story is often shown in a non-linear fashion and hidden under a lot of surface noise, allegories presenting themselves for literal interpretation. Jaeger's romantic, nomadic life gives him free reign to sway through the book, holding it all together, without bringing his morals up front and into question. You get to understand that McNeil, like Dave Sim, has the tapestry of the social history plotted out in her head and is (frustratingly) letting it out a piece at a time.
All in all a very difficult book to review and recommend because there's so much going on. Lots of invention, great little gadgets (Emma's French-accented secretary/minder/Jiminy Cricket with binary digits as angel and devil on her shoulder springs immediately to mind). The city feels lived in, at times halfway between San Francisco and Marrakech. Supporting characters breeze onstage fully realized. Background details in the art hint at other works in lots of different mediums. Quite dizzying, confusing and charming all in one.
[Editor's note: this contains #1-22, an entire half of the older material, plus the covers and annotations. FINDER: VOICE is all-new material.]
