Emily The Strange Graphic Novel Collection Review

08.04.2024 - 12:57 / thesixthaxis.com

If you cast yourself back to the early 2000’s counterculture some major touchstones stand out. It was the height of emo, skateboarding was back in with loads of people (at least at my school) taking part in the sport, and alternative/indie music was one of the most popular genres. The Emily The Strange collection of graphic novels were first published in the early 2000’s, with the character herself first coming into existence in 1991 in California by artist and writer, Rob Reger.

The Emily The Strange collection of graphic novels have all been re-released in hardback for a new audience, bringing together the four book young adult series co-written by Rob Reger and Jessica Gruner – The Lost Days, Stranger and Stranger, Dark Times, and the finale Piece of Mind. The books follow Emily The Strange as she discovers her ancestral secret of control over a substance called Black Rock, as well as dealing with an ancestral enemy who wants to take control for themselves.

Emily herself is a genius, being able to come up with all manner of inventions including a duplication machine, a thoughtcoder that can record and play thoughts, and a time machine. All of these have a bearing in the overarching story that takes place across the four books. Truth be told, Emily can come across as conceited, praising her own genius quite a lot. Then again, she is 13 years old, so some of that comes with the territory.

The Lost Days acts as a very good introduction to the character and her world, introducing the ideas of her fantastical inventions, skills, communicating with dead family members, and black rock in a natural way that you barely even question it. However, after that strong opener, the story quality drops off in Stranger and Stranger, where Emily duplicates herself, with each duplicate possessing different skills and having different personalities. Dark Times is fairly entertaining with time travel being the key to the story, and dealing with a subject of a pandemic killing people – it is this tale where Emily feels the most human as she realises the kind of toll it is having on the town of Seasidetown, and the desperation people feel. Piece of Mind rounds out the overarching story and while the conclusion is satisfactory, the story in this book feels the weakest of the four. It has callbacks to the earlier books and relies on them quite a lot to reach its conclusion – not necessarily a bad thing, but does mean this tale doesn’t stand so well on its own.

One of the most distinctive elements of these books is how they’re presented, with Emily having a chaotic illustrated layout to her diary. The story is told through journal entries – so Emily will write that she is off to do something and then the next entry will explain