Ayxan Solongo reviewed The Freak by Matt Lesniewski
None
3 stars
In contrast to other reviews, it was much more the story that kept me reading than the art. I find the latter to be rather mediocre, beginner-like.
— Line thickness in the fore- and background is the same, with no shadows in either plane, blurring characters and buildings.
— Too much detail in the background that doesn’t look good, but rather as if it’s been directly traced from photographs.
— Odd anatomy for the humans (understandable for the protagonist who’s supposed to be a freak, but not for everyone else – unless that’s the message).
— Maybe it was just due to the lowered quality in my digital file, but the texture also makes it a bit overwhelming and difficult to find a focus.
Not the impression the cover gave.
On a positive note though, it's good to have so many diverse bodies and faces. By societal standards, a lot …
In contrast to other reviews, it was much more the story that kept me reading than the art. I find the latter to be rather mediocre, beginner-like.
— Line thickness in the fore- and background is the same, with no shadows in either plane, blurring characters and buildings.
— Too much detail in the background that doesn’t look good, but rather as if it’s been directly traced from photographs.
— Odd anatomy for the humans (understandable for the protagonist who’s supposed to be a freak, but not for everyone else – unless that’s the message).
— Maybe it was just due to the lowered quality in my digital file, but the texture also makes it a bit overwhelming and difficult to find a focus.
Not the impression the cover gave.
On a positive note though, it's good to have so many diverse bodies and faces. By societal standards, a lot of "ugly" ones. Which is rare, so that's cool.
The story was quite intriguing, and, despite hoping for more, well made. Wanting to belong, but when finding a community that is accepting of your nature, it’s not what you were looking for or not enough.
I didn’t expect there to be graphic murder. (Are the characters even human? Cause there’s no way you can actually cut off someone’s head by hitting them with a shovel, right?) Not that it bothered me visually, I’m just wondering about the world-building.
Overall it’s like a short story – both in length and the literary genre. Tackles everything superficially, has a relatively open ending (although also self-explainable), one plot, one goal, one main character. I’d surely be interested in the world-building, but the focus was the message (although not clear what exactly it is, let’s the reader decide reflectively) and I guess that’s fine.
~
Thank you to Oni Press on Netgalley for an e-ARC.
-21.03.25