Pixels Of You, a very slow burn, hazy manga-esque graphic novel

Pixels Of You, I love that song from The Cure. It’s off of Disintegration, which is easily one of the best LPs, CDs or downloads that you’ll ever run across. D’oh, that song is actually Pictures Of You, my bust. Pixels Of You is a graphic novel that’s aimed at upper middle school futurist fiction readers who really enjoy AI, cybernetically infused humans, and how those robot/people or people/robots fit in with the greater society. It’s also helpful if those readers are girls or those dudes who are into fashion or photography. Readers will further enjoy Pixels Of You if they enjoy conspiracy theories, and statements that could be facts, but could also be confused with stark chapter announcements.

That is a lot to pack in when describing one graphic novel. Folks could also say that Pixels Of You is an updated, female-skewing, fashion-forward, version of Blade Runner. Ironically, it’s a science-fiction-free future that our pixel people live in. The replicants are still robots, and the glass-half-full side of me says that they offer a cautious look at how technology is influencing our lives.

Indira is a human with some robot parts who is ending her internship at a local art gallery. Fawn is the all-too-realistic AI who is struggling with how to fit into the real world and taking over the internship. During the crossover of their internship, they step on each other’s toes about artistic style. It happens when Fawn comes across as a hostile, know-it-all during Indira’s final show. This leads to their boss’ decision to have them team up for some photographs and young adult bonding.

Fawn goes home to her robot parents who look a bit like Ultron and are unable to process why their half-robot girl is so stressed out. The two girls realize that they have more in common, start to empathize with each other, and, in the very final illustration realize that they might be more than just friends.

Anime fans who are in upper middle school will find Pixels Of You to be their jam. Aspects of the art by J.R. Doyle, especially the landscape scenes and drawings of Fawn are as at home in this graphic novel as a Seven-Eleven is in Japan. The story by Ananth Hirsch and Yuko Ota also has the drama that manga fans go mental over.

The stark black pages that sometimes provide a bridge in the story are actual facts, but it would’ve been nice to have that issue listed in the liner notes. AI does have issues when it comes to gender and skin types, plus there was a recruiting tool that Amazon was experimenting with that was scrapped due to bias it showed against women. Both of these facts and a couple of others are listed on those pages, but their presence is watered down due to the fact that they’re not credited and mixed in with things that the characters are feeling.

Pixels Of You is something that a small niche of people will really enjoy. Most graphic novel fans will see the curveball coming from the moment that the two characters are introduced. Those manga fans will certainly see something to love in it, but even those groups will feel that the book is half-baked. Most pages have at least one large panel, sometimes an entire page that has no dialogue at all. If the graphic novel were longer then it would have allowed the book a chance to breathe. However, it’s not that long and those empty panels, which have the intention of being introspective or esoteric, come across as not furthering the plot.

Pixels Of You is by Ananth Hirsh and Yuko Ota with illustrations by J. R. Doyle and available on Amulet Paperbacks, an imprint of Abrams Books.

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