Comics / Comic Reviews / DC Comics

Unfollow #16

By Hervé St-Louis
February 24, 2017 - 08:26

Some of the remaining followers are rebelling and seek to stop the crazy recluse business man Larry Ferrell who has targeted them in his game of death. Elsewhere, the FBI is coming for Akira and his company. However, the Internet has to remain online long enough for them to have a case against the guru from the great beyond.

It’s a fun issue that collates more of the weird subplots into one new crisis that signals that the series is almost concluded. Unfollow can be very difficult to read at times because it is easy to forget the intricate details between issues. I admit that I can barely recall all of the protagonists’ names. Yet, I will not hold this against Rob Williams. It is a series that I will have to reread in one go once it is completed to get all the nuances that Williams embeds in his script.

Williams is playing with post modernism and how people interact with social media by using a narrative that covers and explores many of the ills and good things about social media. It is an experiment whose control group is real life. All Williams is doing is asking the question ‘what if?’ Some of his commentary appear to be first level-only. For example, when we see all the people in the street peering at their screens as they go about their lives. The point about getting off the Web and your phone as you about life in public is old. Yet Williams provides a justification for this. It is the cult of Akira. He argues that for all of a population to be glued to a screen, there must be a variable great enough to compel people to do so.

In this issue, Williams clearly represents social media and the Internet as magic for most folks. For example, how the group open the safe that allow them to check all domain names is a far cry from what really happens at the IETF and ICANN. But it doesn’t matter. Williams represents this very boring and basic maintenance of protocols and standards as something magical.

Mike Dowling is back this issue with his scratchy impressionist textured lines. I miss them. I like how he masters approximations using shape as opposed to light, like a cartoonists like Alex Toth. Using shapes and gross lines makes him closer to Gil Kane. Not complaining! Just analyzing art! It’s all good if you ask me!

Rating: 9 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12