About the Mangaka

Couldn’t find anything on David Ratte

About the Manga

toxic

This, being a comic book, was low on my priority list to read. What a mistake that was as this volume is pure gold!!

I first did a small review of this book a while ago when Yen Press started showing parts of it as a webic. While I certainly liked the looks of it, I didn’t see how well it would do as a full book. However I really got into it, it’s pure tongue in cheek comedy from the outset.

The art style is simple, yet really works well in the single page comic format. In fact I think it works really well. I think it’s helped a lot by the fact that there are very few faces in the volume.

It’s a simple uncluttered art and that’s why it works so well for me. Though I also love the underlying story and mickey take things. At a time where we’re all going on about global warming and stuff, this volume literally rips it to bits.

However it also takes the mickey of several other aspects, such as super powers, the reasons for war and stuff. Sure it’s probably not out to make a statement, but it does any way.

It covers a wide range of issues from pollution, wars, GMO and global warming. For me the thing with this volume was the tongue in cheek way it handles them. Sure they’re important but the constant on going about them gets tedious. Taking the mickey with them is a good relief.

Unfortunately this is one of those titles that has no real story to comment on, making it hard for me to write a review of it like I usually would. However the underlying story that links the panels together works really well and has a great flow to it.

There’s no real issue with this volume, Yen Press have done their usual high standard with it. A few things of note however, it’s larger than usual, more the size of World of Quest. It’s also done on high gloss paper, so it has a good feel to it, enough for me to wish all manga was done on this style of paper hehe

The only thing I didn’t like in this volume was the vast amount of wasted space. The first part of the volume is done on half pages, so as to allow the bottom half to be used as a sort of old school flip book black and white images. However this means there is loads of wasted space.

Not sure what they could have done, but I wish they’d used more of the space better. All told however I do love this volume, and I hope we get to see more like this sooner rather than later.

This volume fits nicely on my Essential Read list!!

Where to Buy

  • Share/Bookmark