I read it in one sitting. The whole thing was weird to think about but not so far off reality and what could happen a few years in the future.
Slow at first but I get it, the in between convos with the workers were a little confusing because of the calligraphy.. loved the pictures and drawings.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This book was more one dimensional that I thought that it would be. It was a great concept but in the end only about sex.

This book had too much nudity and sex for my taste.
I get that they have only their mind and they can do whatever they want, so they want to test their fantasies.

I believe it could have been done differently. It gets repetitive after a while seeing these scenes. Particularly when I think the topic of this book has so much potential. If you are only your mind and you can imagine anything, there is a lot you can do/create/explore, you just have to imagine it...

The book changes somewhere along the line and focuses on what the characters, particularly Rene, are feeling. I did enjoy that part and line of thought and think it could have been more explored.

A man and a woman are given the chance to live in a virtual reality where they can do or be anything they want. And what do they choose to do? Have sex, because of course that is something one can never have in real life, right? Boring and attempting to be cool.

What would <i>The Matrix</i> <b>really</b> be like?

This comic pursues that question and answers it in a riveting narrative.

This was quite an adventure.

But I’m surprised that it didn’t seem to tackle moral questions.

I did like the way it tackled the question of how we might respond to such a world.

<i>Thanks to NetGalley and Europe Comics for a copy in return for an honest review.</i>

This graphic novel blew me away.

Upon opening the graphic novel theres a few patterns or simplistic illustrations that I just loved so much I had to share bits of them. I’m not even sure if anyone else will appreciate them as much as I did but they left me feeling inspired.

If I had to describe it simply to you I’d say “its like the Matrix but if we chose it to happen”.

The Earth is dying and Josiane and René are the first two people to enter our new world – a virtual world.

They’re stripped and entered into these “eggs” where at the touch of their fingertips, their thoughts, or their words they can create anything.

Anything?

Yes! ANYTHING.

Whilst the two are in sepeate eggs they are in the new world together, just them. So of course the first thing they do is generate more people so it feels like empty and lonely. These are not real people, they’re just part of the program, but the more Josiane and René interact the more the program learns so its more natural at generating responses and actions. But still not quite human.

You might have a bit of an idea where this is going.

Consent!

Josiane jumps in with two feet and after talking to one of the divers she then touches his junk. Without permission. And this graphic novel handles this so well that I’m just going to share an image from it:
[image]

and its that easy folks.

Other authors take note.

Consent is important. Consent has to happen.

It could’ve so easily not had this involved given its a virtual world, virtual people, but they chose to have it and I LOVED IT.

I also really liked that its the female character who tried this and thenwho also experiments most with her sexual fantasies. She ends up completely overwhemled by how wild and extravagant they are later on and seeks Rene out for comfort and normality as he’s mostly rejected the idea of sexual acts because they didn’t feel real enough / he was too aware it was made up.

I think seeing these polarising experiences with sex were such a great exploration of sexuality and super important. Especially for those who are on the ace-sepctrum, even if this wasn’t totally ace rep René didn’t have the drive he once had and found other ways to pass the time.

I think I’ve spoken enough about the sexual aspect of this book because there is more to it.

As they can create anything René does just this and explores how far he can take creating his own world! Its really interesting to see just how far his experiment goes as it really pushes the boundaries on what you could create in a reality that allows you to create anything.

Later on in the story the rest of the real world who signed up to live here are allowed access – once they’re sure its all a-okay the system works – and it was very interesting watching how other people adapted. Or didn’t. Or struggled.

It also provided new possibilities and exploration of their ideas for Josiane and René and causes them and the reader to think about the outside world a little more.

It gets us asking questions!
Overall I really recommend this graphic novel, its very different to everything else I’ve read but its got such a great social commentary on our lives and the possibilities of the future that I couldn’t not love it. Plus the whole matrix vibes!!

My only complaint was the font wasn’t super easy to read… if I wasn’t squinting so much maybe it’d have 5 star.

Ever wonder what the future holds for people in an augmented reality? If you read this book, you might have a better idea. Following Rene and Josiane, they are some of the first people to venture into the new world that has been created to escape reality. Anything is possible, you just have to think about it.

After climbing into a sort of bag that connects into them, they're pushed into a completely simulated word. Though there aren't other people in there yet, they're happy to test everything out and escape from reality completely. It seems like an abandoned island, but like I said, anything is possible, and in a second after wanting more people there, they show up. You can have anything you want, you just have to accept that it isn't reality, or you might run into some problems.

The reason I couldn't give this book a full five stars, is because I had a really hard time reading the writing. Though it did get easier as it went on, I just couldn't get every word, and that was kind of frustrating. I liked the story, but the reviews that other people have left, painted a very different picture than the actual story did. What I'm trying to say is, don't judge a book purely from reviews. If it seems like something you'd like, definitely check it out. The art was very interesting and a lot different than other books I've read lately, but if you're not into nudity you might not like this book, because it's full of it.

Overall I enjoyed reading this and getting to know the characters. Check it out if you like futuristic worlds with insane technology, but also people dealing with their very real feelings in a very fake world.

Thanks for reading!
(Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)

A gorgeous, trippy and very French graphic novel about the first two people patched into the virtual world for which humanity is abandoning a dying Earth. At first, she just takes advantage of the possibility of endless configurations of gang-bang, but he can't quite handle the lack of authenticity and mainly ends up reading. And, granted that Percival Everett's Erasure was a fabulously niche choice for him to read, and that at least they didn't have the gender split the other, more obvious but I think less true way, I was still wondering 'is this it?' Turns out, that's entirely deliberate, because so are they, and from there things get far stranger. There's an enormous amount packed into this, and I mean that only partially in the innuendo sense, but it doesn't hold your hand, something which other readers seem to have taken for formlessness. Also, the handwritten lettering, while making for an effective contrast with the system's printed responses, can be slow going.

(Netgalley ARC)

This was a very strange little graphic novel that got me thinking about bigger themes of virtual reality and the way that people are moving further and further away from human contact. Definitely thought provoking, to say the least.

I was unable to download this one for some reason, I tried several times. However, I was able to get a copy elsewhere. I loved the art style, it put me in the mind of Moebius. I can't wait to order for our library!

I was torn on how should I rate this graphic novel because I like the concept of the story of this graphic novel. However, a lot of parts especially in the beginning that concentrates in the sexual fantasies of one of the characters. The latter part of the story is better but I think the ending should have been improved more. As a whole, it could have a great potential because of its concept, but the flow of the story is not executed well.

Human beings have always wanted to believe in a re-set. In more traditional terms this has taken the form of an afterlife, but as technology has progressed, some form of virtual reality alternative to the physical universe has become desired. Well, apparently. I don’t think I know anyone who thinks seriously about packing it all up and hooking themselves up to a computer that would create a perception fo a new reality for them, but damn if futurists and science fiction writers aren’t convinced that’s what we all want.

Maybe it is, and maybe that’s because while we don’t dream of full-blown virtuality, we dip our toes on a daily basis in the form of online communities via social networking, or perhaps in multi-player games. Some people were obviously ready to go when Second Life was released on the world, but that didn’t add up to too many people. We’re still evolving to the point where most of us want to do that with our consciousnesses.

In Alt-Life, circumstances have dictated that humans depend more and more on various levels of unreality in order to just get by in the world, but the next big leap is about to arrive and Josiane and Rene are the test subjects in the vast new virtual universe that the human race is about to give itself to.

During their year of exploration, Josiane is living out her wildest fantasies, but only able to enjoy doing so by acknowledging that they are not with real people, rather than letting herself perceive the virtual as the real. Rene, by contrast, wants to do the same but can’t, and multiple attempts to embrace his situation as a sex fantasy wonderland has proven fruitless for him. The perceived fake-ness is a turn-off for him.

In a lot of ways, the preoccupation with sex makes sense as a meeting point of various aspects of the human experience. In a virtual world where people crave touch, sex and violence are the two ways that touch is experienced with the most intensity. Sex also gives understandable parameters to limitless possibilities. In the end, it’s a formula that leads to defined success, a form of exploration that always brings you to the same basic discovery.



The experiment heralds in what is presented as an inevitable truth, not only the passing of biological life, but the desire of sentient biological life to pass. The idea is that participants will enter into the new virtual reality technology and remain there for the rest of their lives, disembodied personalities moving onto a new stage of existence where no one has to go to the bathroom or anything else gross unless the fantasy in the experience prefers something like that.

Unfortunately, copyrights do dictate your freedom. You can’t just have sex with celebrity likenesses. You can’t just wear costumes that are the intellectual property of some other entity. And though the possibilities are limitless, they are still controlled by your wealth, in the form of memory points. The more memory you have, the more extravagant your virtual world can be, but you need memory points for all that. Meager memory points mean meager lives.



The parallels with the Internet are obvious here, but Thomas Cadene’s script explores these ideas in a fresh way, mixing philosophy and satire with a literary intelligence, and in Josiane and Rene offering two characters that become very relatable in their different experiences. Artist Joseph Falzon has a definite Moebius vibe going on, balancing the psychedelic and fantastic with the more intimate sexual moments using the same energy regardless of scope. The talents of both make this one of the strongest of Europe Comics‘ ebook releases.

There is a lot of fairly graphic sex, but I found what sets it apart from so many comics presenting the same is the way these scenes are integral to the themes of the story. The expressive panels of people touching tenderly and intensely, juxtaposed with the more over the top sexual fantasy scenes, reveal a lot about the experience of the characters and also their personalities, adding dimensions to the story that wouldn’t be there without the scenes.

This was an odd graphic novel to say the least. I didn't even try to finish it after about half way through it.

Alt-Life is the story of what happens when two horny French people volunteer as beta testers for an all-encompassing VR experience that lets them escape from the polluted, dying Earth. Once you’re inside the VR devices, which look like giant red eggs full of undulating cilia, the system integrates with your body and you live out the rest of your life on the inside.

For the first year they’re inside the devices, Josiane and René are alone in an infinite world, testing out the system so that the rest of humanity can join them when it’s ready. They explore its limits and discover that there aren’t any as long as your device has enough memory. They also explore every possible sexual fantasy. Josiane sinks into endless hedonism, but René quickly becomes disillusioned with the lack of substance in his imagined encounters and loses his sex drive.

This, then, is where more existential questions come into play. If you can have anything you imagine with the snap of your fingers, does any of it have meaning or value? What does it mean to be rich or powerful in a virtual world? The arrival of other humans in the virtual world brings even more complications because, by that time, Josiane and René have changed in immeasurable ways.

While René and Josiane are inside their virtual world, we also get glimpses of the world outside. It’s obvious that the Earth has become inhabitable, presumably due to some kind of environmental catastrophe (sound familiar?) and humanity has created these bizarre organic VR devices as a way to preserve themselves in some form, even if that means living out the rest of their lives in an imaginary world.

From reading some of the other reviews of this book, it seems like the wall-to-wall sex was a bit much for some readers, but Alt-Life is about more than just sex. Instead, the author explores the nature of humanity and what it could mean to give up on “real life” and retreat into a virtual refuge. It just happens to be a particularly horny refuge.

I especially enjoyed the art style. At first, everything is minimalist, all solid colors and simple lines, but once Josiane and René start letting loose and playing with their abilities, there are huge panels full of bright colors and meticulous detail. It’s a beautiful book. My only criticism is that the dialog is lettered in a tight cursive, which makes it difficult to read.

'Alt-Life' by Thomas Cadene with art by Joseph Falzon is a dystopian graphic novel about two explorers who will save humanity by trying to live in a weird kind of bubble reality.

Rene and Josiane get chosen to participate in a new program that will hopefully save the human race. They don odd suits and wake up in a place where they can make anything happen with the power of their mind. The world is lonely, so they populate it with simulated humans. Then they start having sex with them. Or not having sex as the case may be. Josiane has no problem, but Rene feels weird about it all. Rene also feels weird about not hurting when he falls, or having smelly armpits. It's a strange new world, and these are kind of strange people.

Besides all the sex, and there seems to be an awful lot, I liked the premise of this. I really liked the art. What seemed odd to me about this is they have a program and they manage to pick these two? Rene seems to have trouble coping and Josiane just wants to have sex all day. It seems like a weird basis for an experiment.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Europe Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

Thank you very much for making this volume available for my review. The appeal of this particular book was not evident to me, and if I cannot file a generally positive review I prefer simply to advise the publisher to that effect and file no review at all.

This was an imaginative story with excellent artwork and gorgeous colouring. Earth is dying and so people are entering a new virtual world where anything is possible.

Josiane and Rene are the first to test out this new world. It is a world that has so many possibilities and much potential, but no turning back. Josiane embraces this new world and all it has to offer, especially with regards to sex, but Rene struggles with this abundance of new life and experiences. For him the new world is a lonely place.

I thought this story was interesting, particularly in the way it shows how Josiane and Rene explore their new world. I thought there was a lot of emphasis on sex in the new world and the story could have broadened out a bit to include other aspects of life. At some point other people enter the new world and I wanted to know more about who was left behind sustaining people as they enter their pods. Was this world limitless in what could be imagined or did people place limitations on themselves?

As other people enter the new world it becomes clear that people have to pay for levels of comfort in the new world so inequality was actually built into a world that was supposed to bring hope for people and I though that was another interesting aspect. To enter the new shiny, limitless world is freedom and excitement but also death.

It is a fascinating story which raises lots of questions which the reader can ask as they reflect on the gorgeous art work.

Copy provided by Europe Comics in exchange for an unbiased review.

*Got this book courtesy of NetGalley*
It's surely something else. On the one hand, it's pretty messed up, but on the other - very interesting to read and look at. Truth is the story is pretty simple - two young people entering a virtual reality world, to see how it's going to work for the rest of humanity, which will follow suit. They explore this new world of possibilities, which are endless, as it turns out. The only boundary is your imagination. Or so it seems. Perfect world is not so perfect after all... The drawings are pretty nice, I liked the colours, too.
It is full of sex and sensuality, but the scenes aren't vulgar. I liked that.
An intense story for sci-fi and thinking fans.

So, Alt-Life was weird. And I like weird. But I’m not sure about this one (at least the first part). It gets good, but it takes about 80 pages to get really good. I love the concept. Cool idea, even if it has been done before. It hasn't been done quite like this, at least that I've seen. The Earth is dying. People create some virtual reality world where “anything is possible,” so you can do almost anything or go anywhere you can imagine, unless it’s copyrighted, as we see when Josiane wants to wear Wonder Woman’s outfit and is denied. I'm not sure how I feel about that part. I know that it's like breaking the fourth wall in a way, letting readers know that the author of this book couldn't put copyrighted elements in the book. But I almost wish that wasn't in there at all, because all I could think about after that scene was how I would totally be doing a bunch of superhero stuff in my VR world. And why couldn't they buy the rights to use that stuff in the VR world? I mean, Earth is dying... does that mean that all copyrighted things are lost forever? Just gone? Never accessible in the VR world? That's so sad, if true.

So, our characters are placed in these jello egg things then dropped into water. I assume a deep pool of water because they don’t show you if it’s an ocean or a lake or a pool or what. Maybe each egg thing gets its own vat of water in a lab somewhere? I don't know. I'd like to know though. Because later it seems like these egg things aren't in water anymore, when the real humans are keeping track of Rene and Josiane in the real world.

Rene and Josie spend an entire year in this VR alone (well, as the only two real people in there), and they learn a lot about themselves and existence while they're there. As test subjects, really, testing out the world before the rest of the humans join. That's a long time. It just kind of jumped at the end, without letting us know that that much time had passed in there. I was caught off guard by that. I can only assume Rene and Josie got a handle on things in that time.

The art wasn’t bad, and at times it was actually very good, but it looked much better zoomed out. Although, it was difficult to understand human emotions with this art style. The facial features and details weren't much help there, which made it difficult to connect to the characters. There just wasn’t a whole lot of emotion with the scenes. Didn’t feel like I was relating to any character, or even immersed entirely in the story because it was pretty blank emotionally.

One small problem throughout was with the lettering/fonts. They really threw me off. The handwritten cursive would’ve been OK, but it was very small and smooshed in a lot of bubbles, and difficult to read. Then it switched to a big and bold generic font randomly, seemingly for no reason. Sometimes a character would be talking in cursive, then they'd be talking in a digital generic font in the same panel or one panel over. It was a bit confusing. Consistency would be good, even if it's that the characters get the cursive font and the "voice" of the VR control people get the generic digital font.

On to content. I’m no prude, but there’s a good bit of unnecessary sexual stuff. Like, the first half of the book has parts that seem like they were written by a teenager who just wanted to write the word “tits” and draw close ups of men’s crotches. As well as straight up porn scenes. I'll go ahead and say that I've read erotica, and I enjoy it occasionally. I just kind of wish I had known that's what this was going into it. I was expecting a sci-fi story, and that's it.

Moving on.

There’s this weird scene where Josiane tries to grope some computer-generated VR dude and that dude PUNCHES HER OUT OF THE WATER. It’s crazy. It's funny, but crazy.

Then we abruptly switch scenes to Rene, the non-VR guy who was just on the beach with Josiane (no transition panel or anything), who is now chilling in space, hanging out, when he decides to masturbate. Then the VR gods send him a bunch of female clones to bang him. Can we get some lead up or something here? It just doesn't flow well.

Extremely graphic at times. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing necessarily, but it just felt very forced and random. No transitions. I get that people are always thinking about sex and that's realistic, but I mean I know that I would be doing all kinds of crazy stuff first. I wouldn't go straight to that, or stick with that for hours on my first day. I'm pretty sure most people would want to fly for a while, and explore space or something on their first day.

You can do pretty much anything, and all these two want to do is sex up some fake VR people. Rene does check out a book, but he ends up not reading and just checking out some girl.

Rene and Josiane do acknowledge that it’s creepy, but they still do it. Well, at least Josiane does. Surprisingly, Rene is the one who steps out of the sex machine mentality first, which I kind of liked.

On the phone with your mom from the real world? Why don’t you just have sex with some VRs while talking to her? This just kind of goes on for a while. Seems like there could be more to these scenes, but they don't take it past the surface.

There are some great panels on Earth, people talking about the planet dying, what will happen to them, life and death and whatnot, but I feel like it almost isn’t enough. I wanted more plot, and sooner. More back story. More character development. Just... more. The few pages of this could be turned into something more for sure.

And I’m not quite sure what’s happening to the gel bubble egg things Rene and Josiane are in. Why are there people tasked with standing near them and touching them in a huge empty room? Watching over them? Do they have to do this to get feedback on the test subjects? Random people have to be there at all times touching and watching their eggs and watching what Rene and Josiane are doing in their VR world? I get that someone has to record it, but it seems like random people are coming in and changing out and just chilling in that room for some reason that isn't explained. Are there not digital ways of keeping track of the results? I guess I just wanted some explanation.

The good thing is, some great points are made, and there are some awesome panels throughout. I’m glad I read this graphic novel. But, it does have some issues, as I’ve been saying. I feel like I couldn’t connect to the characters like I wanted to. And the oversexed vibe was a bit distracting. It’s great to live out all of these fantasies with the characters, if that’s what you’re into, I just wasn’t prepared for that. And it switched back and forth between sexy time and serious time. It was abrupt. As is, I think I would’ve been more impressed if I had gone into it knowing it was Erotica, or some kind of erotic sci-fi graphic novel. Or even as an absurdist-erotic-sci-fi-humor piece. That would’ve been great. It just wasn’t presented that way, and the summary didn’t hint at any of that.

I get what they were trying to do... I think. Show the negative/scary side of VR, and how boredom can be a nightmare even when you can do anything you want. Because it’s never the same as something REAL. I love that message, I just think it might have taken a wrong turn somewhere and didn’t express this as well as it could have, or as soon as it could have. I think part of the flaw might lie in the art. The details of facial expressions weren’t there when I wanted them to be. But, maybe that’s just me. I DID enjoy this comic, I’m just pointing out a few things that may help others know what they’re getting into with this one. It certainly isn’t for everyone, and it would help to know what you're about to read before diving into an orgy head first.

I loved the surreal moments, where the characters really let their imaginations run while, or when they lost control of their thoughts and entered a terrifying mindscape. And I like the takeaway from those scenes, and the book as a whole. The ending is satisfying.

When the rich leaders of the real world, or the VIP folks, finally enter the VR world, Rene and Josie give it to them straight. And I like this ending. It works. It's actually my second favorite part (first favorite being from page 84-94 when things get surreal). The entire last half of the book is what made this worth reading. I really enjoyed the last half, and I think I'll think about it for a while.

I guess my main question is... who's watching over these egg jello things when everyone is in the VR world? All of humanity? It's not like you can get out of them once you're in. You're in for good. The earth is going to be dead soon. Are there people in the real world left watching over everyone in the VR world? If this VR world is rooted in earth, in some body of water there, full of gel eggs with people inside, what happens if the earth gets hit by a meteor or something? Or an alien race visits? Or the sun dies and demolishes the solar system? They act like they're in this VR world forever and ever, or maybe they die in there, but I just don't know how that could be possible if they weren't uploaded into this thing. Their bodies are still connected to reality... right? I don't know. I think I'm overthinking it.
Overall, good read! I enjoyed it. I would check out future work by this author.

Interesting and graphic, ALT-LIFE follows Josiane and René as they enter a new world where just about anything is possible. While the book has a deeper story line, the first half of it is basically varying orgies. Not entirely what I expected from a graphic novel. Actually, the entire book focuses around sex and how it's different with those you actually connect with.