Hundreds of years in the future, the world’s population has become accustomed to living without technology, reverting to a simpler way of life with no machines of any kind. That’s all thanks to a technological uprising, and subsequent war, which saw most of the planet’s population devastated, and the wealthy fleeing off-world rather than deal with the mess they created has led to the current status quo.

A teacher named Samara is educating her young students on the world’s history, but something is coming which will change the accepted view of the past forever, as well as Samara’s understanding of her own heritage…

This graphic novel, written by Drew D. Lenhart and illustrated by Dell Barras, tells a fun, pulpy sci-fi story which begins with a pretty standard robot uprising, and then twists into something very different as it progresses.

There’s a great bit of social commentary here too, which helps the setup feel especially relevant and contemporary. That said, the robot design and overall aesthetic has a very retro-futuristic feel; there’s more than a touch of Metropolis or Buck Rogers to the robots, for example, only with added spikes for a bit more of a threatening vibe. Artist Barras has a clean, appealingly straightforward pencilling style, with excellent clarity in terms of storytelling, as well as really fun action sequences.

The story itself moves at quite a pace, even though it does have two extended sequences of exposition to bring us up to date with what really happened after the apocalyptic events of the past. Though there are a few moments where it feels like events transpire a little too quickly, with a sudden acceptance of major events from our characters, it’s hard to be too harsh on it for this reason, given the reasonable page count limit and how much setup, action and the unusual twists it covers.

Indie publisher Homebrewed Comics are doing something really interesting with Samara and the Rangers of Centaria too; they’ve essentially created their own crowdfunding platform in order to fund the publication of the graphic novel. The campaign launches on July 8th, and you can check it out here.

Many thanks to creator Drew D. Lenhart for providing me with an advance digital copy of Samara and the Rangers of Centaria for review purposes.

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