The Seeds
Ann Nocenti, author; David Aja, artist
Berger Books, 2021
The Seeds collects a four-issue miniseries set in a dystopian future. How dystopian? So bad that some think that planet Earth may be dying. The bees are swarming (a sign of the resurgence of the natural world); a rebellious group of romantics have fled a tech-oriented society to create their own; and a small group of aliens have come to harvest the last seeds of humanity. Idealistic journalist Astra wears a hazmat suit to protect her from toxic air and fallout, like everyone else in the tech zone. When she crosses over to the wild tech-free Zone-B in pursuit of a story she meets the aliens, and has photos to prove it. Later she changes her mind about the love affair between the human Lola and the alien Race and joins them on a ship sailing to reseed the planet. This is a completely changed world, with only a few ties to current reality. So one could hardly expect a concrete ending to the story, which is mainly about creating a claustrophobic end-times atmosphere. Aja's monochromatic nine-panel grid captures the tone perfectly, managing to be both beautiful and brutal at the same time.
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