A review by quetzelish
The Infinite Loop by Elsa Charretier, Pierrick Colinet
3.0
The Infinite Loop is a book that, in concept, should be very good and very interesting. Unfortunately, in execution it falls a little flat. Let's start with the good things. The artwork is very good, with beautiful pastel-like colors. The characters feel distinct and, for the most part, convey emotions well. While mostly consisting of light colors, the darker ones do shine through. Additionally, the romance between Ano and Teddy feels well done, albeit in a love at first sight kind of way. It could have used a bit more development as a romance for us the audience but that didn't seem to be the point of the book. The point was to talk about gender and sexuality. The first issue sets us up with who Teddy is, what she does, what anomalies are and what the Infinite loop is.
Now that's all well and good but this is where we begin to run into problems. The sci-fi aspect of this story is bad. And maybe that's just because I don't understand time travel as well as I thought I did but all of the time travel stuff is way too confusing. Instead of being explained well, it's shown in images and adventures but because the rules of time travel aren't native to our everyday lives, it becomes much harder to make sense of all the jumping around and the affects that it can have. It started out very well, keeping it simple with Teddy taking care of time anomalies. Then the romance begins, which diverts from the sci-fi and the decision tree of Teddy's thoughts is very well done and interesting. Some of the best parts of this book are the way that Teddy's thoughts are conveyed to us.
But once Teddy begins her romp through time once again, the book begins to unravel around its own concept. Time travel needs to be explained well and it just isn't here. However, that isn't the main collapse in premise that occurs.
Once we get to where issue 4 would be, the subtleties of book become very overt and very heavy handed. At its heart, The Infinite Loop is a romance with a heavy emphasis on addressing the way that American culture deals with sexuality and gender. But by the end, you feel like you're being beaten over the head with the message (with pages that literally just contain quotes from Malcolm X or Harvey Milk) and combined that with a confusing actual plot, and what's left is a bit of a confusing mess. I'm glad I read this, as the ideas were really good. But the pacing was unbalanced and the ideas presented in too much of a confusing way. I hope to see more of the artist and writer as time goes on, refining what they learned from making this. They know how to get romance down, all that needs to be done is fitting it in a less confusing framework.
Spoiler
to kill Ano and to use the reaction to the deathNow that's all well and good but this is where we begin to run into problems. The sci-fi aspect of this story is bad. And maybe that's just because I don't understand time travel as well as I thought I did but all of the time travel stuff is way too confusing. Instead of being explained well, it's shown in images and adventures but because the rules of time travel aren't native to our everyday lives, it becomes much harder to make sense of all the jumping around and the affects that it can have. It started out very well, keeping it simple with Teddy taking care of time anomalies. Then the romance begins, which diverts from the sci-fi and the decision tree of Teddy's thoughts is very well done and interesting. Some of the best parts of this book are the way that Teddy's thoughts are conveyed to us.
But once Teddy begins her romp through time once again
Spoiler
to save Ano with herself from other timelines (see what I mean by sci-fi confusion) and break the infinite loop by...resetting the universe which is still part of the infinite loop?Once we get to where issue 4 would be, the subtleties of book become very overt and very heavy handed. At its heart, The Infinite Loop is a romance with a heavy emphasis on addressing the way that American culture deals with sexuality and gender. But by the end, you feel like you're being beaten over the head with the message (with pages that literally just contain quotes from Malcolm X or Harvey Milk) and combined that with a confusing actual plot, and what's left is a bit of a confusing mess. I'm glad I read this, as the ideas were really good. But the pacing was unbalanced and the ideas presented in too much of a confusing way. I hope to see more of the artist and writer as time goes on, refining what they learned from making this. They know how to get romance down, all that needs to be done is fitting it in a less confusing framework.