3 Stars ~

Ever feel like something in your life has happened, you have a meaning to your life, but you just can't figure it out? Wren will stop at nothing to find his truth, even when the truth terrifies him.

First of all, the illustration was phenomenal. *chef's kiss*

So this graphic novel was a little confusing to me, I feel like I was having to re-read parts because I was so confused, but I feel like I got the message in the end. Graphic novels are a fairly new genre to me, but I am enjoying giving them a go.

Im into horror, and I love a good horror graphic novel, but this one really disappointed me. I feel like too much was going on, but nothing really... I didn't care about what the main character was struggling with, and in her quest to find out what happened to her parents. The ending was .... complicated.

I enjoyed the graphics but they didn't scared me at all. I also think they could have been better.

Also, loved that it was a fast reading, but the dialogs were too heavy... too much..

I am grateful I had the chance to receive this book as an advance reader copy, thank you.

While the artwork in this was fantastic, the panel placement gave it a very unique, dynamic feel, the story itself was lackluster. It was a difficult experience to get through, despite the great artists that put their talents to work at great effect.

I wish I had more to say, but the story was such that once I finished it, it left my mind. Ironically (not even) forgotten in a blink of an eye, sadly.

The only reason this isn't getting a one star is because of the art, I can't justify going beyond two.

I'd like to thank netgalley for the review copy, in exchange for an honest review.

Blink is a trippy, frightening commentary on our rapid transition into technologies that have the potential to make our lives into entertainment, whether willingly or without our knowledge.
The art style and graphic layout are often unsettling and add depth to the storytelling.

I was really let down by this graphic novel. I felt as though I’d get something almost parallel to the matrix and inception with interwoven and overlapping realities. I didn’t get that.

The art was beautiful but the flow of the plot was jarring at some points in time. I don’t think this book was for me unfortunately.

I really wanted to like this book, as the art was incredibly interesting and had great use of color and the concept was super interesting. However the story was too much to be packed into just one volume and ended up feeling quite rushed. At times it was hard to understand the story and character motivations because the plot had to rush forward to the next checkpoint. It is unfortunate as like I said, the concept of Blink was very interesting and something that I would love to see done with more room for the story to breathe and develop.

First and foremost, I loved the art. The drawings were amazing, I am obsessed with the art. But the story was too much packed into one short book. This could have been longer or split into volumes. It felt rushed and for that I can’t rate it more than 3 stars.

The art style of this book is absolutely gorgeous! The story was compelling and very atmospheric. Loved this graphic novel.

This wasn't my favorite read but I don't really think that has got anything to do with the comic itself. I think it was intriguing and I liked the creepy creatures. Just wasn't for me.

Blink is a pretty cool graphic novel about a woman who is trying to discover the secrets of her past. She was found as a child on the streets of New York with no memory. She has some vague ideas about what happened to her, but she doesn't really know.

Blink follows Wren as she finds out. And it's a trippy story involving cults, night terrors, and weird computery stuff. The story and art are close and claustrophobic and there's a feeling of dread that permeates the story. The ending...well, I liked and disliked the ending at the same time.

This is a cool horror comic with good art. Recommended for people who like dark stuff.

DNF @ 50%

Thank you to NetGalley and Oni Press for the ARC. I was excited to read this from the cover art and book description. The art is really well done and I really enjoyed the opening of the book. I would have liked a little more background work done up front to get me more invested in the MC. I don’t feel invested in the book at 50% completion to find out what happens next and have decided to move on. That being said, I’m new to the genre of horror graphic novels, so it’s possible that this is a me problem. I’m not saying this book isn’t well done, but it unfortunately did not resonate with me.

A gripping 'Dark Mirror'esque 'Truman Show' horror story about a life stolen, a spirit lost, looking for answers in the dark recesses of memory. Wren has strong motivations, mystery, action, and killer demons and the priesthood that fights them. Blink is a very gripping, edge-of-your-seat read that can be enjoyed by everyone within today's society. A very cerebral and technologically aware thriller!

Ok... Wow... This was great. I feel like I was hugely drawn in from the start, I wanted the mystery explained, I wanted a satisfying conclusion, I wanted Wren to be ok in the end. I felt for Wren, not feeling like they belonged, not fully knowing their past, having to sift through what was real and what was imagined, and the obsession you feel when you get a glimpse, a taste of answers. I feel like Wren as a character was super believable, not overly likeable or unlikeable but just a victim of circumstance. I'll admit to shedding a small tear towards the end.
As for the art, omg, it was gorgeous, chaotic and creepy. The page layout and text placement was a bit all over the place at times but it didn't detract from the story, in fact I think it helped to put us in Wren's head, confused and scrambling to understand. The pops of colour against the dark, brooding backgrounds or plain white nothingness really added to the feeling of helplessness.
The only critique I have is a certain story element that, while added to the overall feeling of isolation and desperation, felt like it happened too quickly at the expense of character development. I feel like it could have happened later and been even more impactful on the reader.
Also this is not found footage horror it's maybe analogue horror at a stretch, maybe cyber horror or body horror? I think classifying it as found footage horror does a disservice to the intricacies of the story.
Overall I would be interested to continue the story, as the ending could be seen as ambiguous, and failing that see more from this team.
4.85/5 stars

DNF at 40%

I loved the style, the cover and the colours, but I really wasn't into the story. Sorry. I found the beginning a bit confusing and the more I read the more I was just not interested in seeing the story progress.

3 stars for the style.

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Netgalley.)

When Wren was a toddler, she was found wandering the streets of New York, alone and covered in blood; an orphan, her parents missing but presumed dead. She would spend the next eighteen years haunted by the black void that was her childhood, trying and failing to piece together a "normal" life when she doesn't even know who she is.

Now a journalist, Wren tries to solve other people's mysteries as a way of salving her wounds; but always and forever on the lookout for a break in her own case. And then, it comes: in the form of a URL, which displays feeds from countless cameras. Among the pixles, static, and cavernous emptiness, it awakens something in Wren: memories long-buried, of an underground bunker, filled to bursting with cameras and monitors. And so she leaves her comfortable yet pained life with Nico, and follows an urban explorer named Joel straight into the bowels of hell.

BLINK has a pretty interesting premise, though it sadly falls short in its execution. It's pretty clearly a warning about the dangers of the surveillance state, the commodification of personal data, and the idolization of the rich (particularly tech bros), which I can get behind; but the story is just a little too out there for me. For example, take the two competing factions of Blink, the static and the signal, the latter which seemingly transformed themselves into some sort of zombie-robot hybrid of the course of, what, two decades?

The art is pretty creepy, but the dark tones and stylistic choices often make it difficult to tell what's going on. Reading this on an ipad sometimes proved maddening, as the panels rotated between landscape and portrait. I guess it's a cool choice, to mimic the protagonist's journey through a ramshackle, cyberpunk dyi, multi-unit city dwelling, but actually reading it was another story.

For a complete experience, read this body horror comic, take a break to play an aggressive duel of the boardgame Radlands, all the while listening to some grindcore, or at least a very industrial electro album... can't say I liked the experience much, but it was an original take on 1984, with a good dose of cyberpunk universe, a little American Gods twist and populated with gory techno-zombies.
Wren is a really interesting character and made me keep reading. I liked her, felt for her plight, and would have liked the tone to be a little more personal, a real voice. Something that shows, real dialogues, rather than this constant exterior commentating. It made it feel a little pretentious, and kept me at a distance from the story throughout, making it hard to really feel Wren's emotions.
If you like edgy comics, zombies, cyberpunk cults, have a look, it might be more for you.

Escaping from a childhood she largely can't remember but knows wasn't good, Wren Booker has pieced together an adult life that looks reasonably convincing – but her journalism is largely a displacement activity for the one story she can't get to the bottom of. And then, somehow, she gets a lead... Which is fairly obviously a trap, but she's sufficiently solidly characterised that her insistence on pulling the thread is still entirely plausible. More of an issue is that the answers she apparently finds, while they'd absolutely be enough of an explanation in real life, clearly won't cut it in a comic, so there has to be more, darker, stranger. And as Wren goes deeper into the mystery, that initial sense of connection dissipates. I kept being reminded of stuff I like, from House Of Leaves to Faction Paradox, but it was generally as if they'd been badly adapted into a straight-to-streaming thriller. There are some cool layouts, and occasional hints at promising ideas like an interrogation of the whole Chosen One concept, but for the most part they're smothered in so much running down corridors that even this fan of classic Who found it exhausting.

(Netgalley ARC)

Blink has an awesome premise, great art, creative use of panels, but it fails in the execution department. First, it’s not really a found footage horror. Second, the narrative is erratic, confusing, sometimes rushed, sometimes dragging. Urban exploration turns into a heavy-handed lesson about the evils of surveillance and social experiments.

Sadly, Blink didn’t work out for me at all.

What I really enjoyed about this story was the mystery. Wren can’t remember her childhood. She was found alone on the streets of New York covered in blood. As an adult the blankness of her past haunts her and she searches the web seeking for the truth. Then one day she finds something on the internet and she decides to follow the trail.

This is a tense filled dark horror/ sci-fi graphic novel. The artwork complements the story and the pace is good. The story is a little open ended but the questions the reader is left, with actually heighten the end.

It is a good story with plenty of twists, and turns.

Copy provided by Oni Press via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

Blink is a chilling and fast paced look at how society jumped head first into the need to be immersed in media. We follow Wren as she relives the trauma of her young life in well timed flashbacks of memories in a building that seems all too familiar. Blink serves as a modern day parable about how media will live forever and what we do with this digital immortality could be our undoing.

The art style is well suited to the story telling and helps lend to the eerie atmosphere of Blink. The layout kept the story moving without becoming disorienting and was used in clever ways to amplify the found footage angle of the story.

Thank you to Netgalley and Oni Press for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.