Indie Comic Review: Seron #0

Zero issues are always tough to review. They are more like short stories than a completed issue, and they also more or less serve a purpose. Unlike a regular story, which is meant to engage, inform, and entertain, issue zeroes, especially a short one, are more like an appetizer to the main course. It has a job to introduce the setting and characters, giving the reader just a taste of what's to come. Seron's issue zero does an excellent job introducing this world and fleshing it out into something with potential, but it does have a bit of heavy exposition that holds it back.

The issue begins by describing Seron, a futuristic floating city separated by classes. Of course, the wealthy reside in the center with the middle layer reserved for the middle class. The city's poorest residents live on the outskirts, where a lot of criminal activity takes place. The issue’s story focuses on its main character, a police officer of sorts who works undercover to weed out criminal elements. It starts in the past with her first assignment before jumping to the present, where she is now the city's top investigator and about to begin a new assignment. 

The story itself for the issue served its purpose. It introduces its characters and setting while providing some minor action to move the narrative of the issue along. I don't think it had the best choice of lettering, but the art complemented the writing well. For an issue zero, it checks off all the boxes and serves its purpose, setting the stage for issue one. However, I did feel the exposition to be a little heavy-handed at times. Sci-fi/fantasy stories like this are tough because there's so much information that needs to be communicated. But all this information is best divulged naturally through the story. There was a lot of telling in this issue zero, which could communicated through other ways. Still, it's understandable given that it's not the meat of the story and shouldn’t detract from the series at large.