Relay TP Vol. 1: Reality Denied Paperback – July 9, 2019

'Relay Vol. 1: by Zac Thompson and Donny Cates with art by Andy clarke and Ryan Bodenheim is a graphic novel with kind of a hard science fiction premise.The graphic novel starts with a monolith known as the Galactic Relay arriving on a planet and a man named Hank Donaldson who is sent to colonize and homogenize worlds. A man named Jad Carter is an employee of Relay and his job is to quell dissension. He becomes curious about his job, his world, and who Hank Donaldson is. This sends him on a journey that turns out to be weirder than expected.Is monoculture a good idea at the expense of others or do we benefit from diverse paths of growth? What really makes a legend and is it something we should never question?These are some of the questions raised by the book, and while it doesn't necessarily answer them, I think it's more interesting that they get raised for the reader to think about.The art works well. The characters and story are interesting. I liked this one.I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Diamond Book Distributors and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.In a far-flung future, in a universe united culturally by the ‘Galactic Relay’. But the Relay has secrets, and some of those, when revealed, burn.Honestly, I found this story intriguing, but very confusing. The idea of a universe forcibly united by a monolithic structure is dystopian to my mind, and while the story of delving into what lies behind the Relay was intriguing, I’m not really sure I understood everything that was going all the time. The artwork of the story is nice, more comics than graphic novel, but the way the story was told just seemed to lose me at points. There were neat concepts buried in the story that are definitely worth exploring, but I came away feeling like I just hadn’t gotten everything that the writers meant to convey.