Star Wars: Doctor Aphra (2020-) #9 by Alyssa Wong
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It’s hard to put my finger on why I didn’t enjoy this issue. It might be that the pages were oddly set up, such that I thought at first that the artist didn’t understand bleed and trim…but a quick check of the previous issue shows that not to be the case. In fact, the whole creative team is the same as on the last issue, so it’s not a production problem. And yet, throughout, panel borders are far too close to the edge of the page, and in many instances they’re right on the page edge. This shouldn’t happen…and yet… Maybe my copy was just trimmed spectacularly badly by the printers.
I’m sure this wouldn’t be an issue for most people, but comics pre-press is literally my job, so it bugged me.
The other thing that bugged me was that I really don’t care about the plot. Somebody is trying to recreate a Nihil hyperdrive, someone else is trying to stop them, and Aphra is caught up in the middle of it…which really should lead to hijinks, but doesn’t. Instead it leads to a weak “intern getting the coffee order wrong” joke and…that doesn’t really belong in Star Wars, in my very humble opinion.
This series has been very much up and down so far, and the art really isn’t helping. I hope it finds its feet soon, because it’s becoming increasingly hard to justify the existence of an Aphra solo book.
Random Ramblings Of A Ragamuffin 