A child goes missing in 2002, then reappears in what is billed as the present day (though obviously it's pre-Event), claiming to have been abducted by aliens. He's one of the really famous missing kids, too - a New Mexico Madeleine McCann* - so a media shitshow surrounds and exacerbates an already difficult situation. Writer Eliot Rahal, interestingly, describes it as autobiographical - though in his own case he only lost a few hours. Still, the premise feels an awful lot like a hybrid of two other comics, Saucer Country and Birthright - maybe with a dash of Flex Mentallo in the alien scenes, though that could just be a certain echo in Clara Meath's art style. The highlight is undoubtedly the Men in Black doing their absolute best to be normal: "yes...thank you, hello...what nice weather we are having. Small talk, small talk, small talk. We are from the human Federal Bureau of Investigation." Even there, though, it's annoyingly unclear whether they seem as weird to the characters as to the reader, and if not, why not.

*Which feels curiously optimistic when he's a Latino boy, rather than the usual angelic Caucasian girl.

(Netgalley ARC)

An alien abduction story based on a true story, a scenario that I can definitely say intrigued me! This graphic novel had some elements that I enjoyed: I liked the realism of the police/hospital in the way they deal with anything they do not understand, I liked the memories we get from Oliver from his time with the aliens, and the way they interact with each other. I also really liked the part of this graphic novel where Oliver is with his mother again. The problem with this is that it does not allow time to focus on anything in the story, and just rushes, rushes, and rushes. Everything seems to be explored very briefly, giving no depth to any of the characters, the things happening in the story etc. I feel like this could have been so much more.

Midnight Vista's contrast-filled art and intriguing premise sounded ripe to be the type of story to pull me in, and - for the most part - it kept me reading. However, I generally struggled to follow along, and in the end, the way the tale was executed felt largely incomplete, with many unanswered questions.