A Distant Soil, Vol. 1: The Gathering

A Distant Soil (collected editions) #1

by Colleen Doran, Neil Gaiman (Introduction)

The story of a young girl, Liana, who is born heir to an alien religious dynasty and is the most powerful psychic being in the universe In Volume One: The Gathering, Liana and her older brother Jason escape the cruel captivity they have known most of their lives only to encounter a warship sent by her father to assassinate her

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Comix

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Colleen Doran is an American writer-artist and cartoonist. She illustrated hundreds of comics, graphic novels, books and magazines, including the autobiographical graphic novel of Marvel Comics editor and writer Stan Lee entitled Amazing Fantastic Incredible Stan Lee, which became a New York Times bestseller. She adapted and did the art for the short story "Troll Bridge" by Neil Gaiman, which also became a New York Times bestseller. Her books have received Eisner, Harvey, Bram Stoker, and International Horror Guild Awards.

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

#ThrowbackThursday - Back in the '90s, I used to write comic book reviews for the website of a now-defunct comic book retailer called Rockem Sockem Comics. From the June 1997 edition with a theme of "Trade Paperbacks":

INTRODUCTION

Regular readers of this column have probably noticed a bias towards DC Comics trade paperbacks in the "From the Backlist" section. This happens because DC has the longest backlist in PREVIEWS each month, and I have more comics from DC in my personal collection than from any other comic book company. In the interests of equal time, I intended to dedicate this column to new and resolicited trade paperbacks from other companies. Alas and alack, those sneaky devils at DC still managed to slip in by reprinting a graphic novel originally available only through an English publisher. Honest, I'm not getting any sort of kickback for this, it just happens! Maybe next month I'll finally exorcise that demonic DC influence . . . if they stop publishing good comics by then.

A FORGOTTEN TREASURE

A DISTANT SOIL #1-19 (Aria Press/Image Comics)

Whenever I do these reviews, I go back and reread all the issues of all the books upon which I am going to be commenting. Based on my previous reading, I usually have a grade in mind before I start rereading, and that grade usually sticks. Occasionally I find something is not as good as I remember and adjust my grade downward. However, this month, for the first time, I have found something that was better than I remembered: A DISTANT SOIL.

The story focuses on Jason and Liana, the offspring of an Earth woman and a fugitive alien with psionic powers. The siblings have inherited psionic abilities from their father, Aeren. Jason is a disruptor; he can kill with a touch. Liana has the potential to be an Avatar, a being of unlimited telepathic and telekinetic abilities who can draw upon the collective psionic strength of all the inhabitants of her father's native planet, Ovanan.

Everyone in the galaxy is after these kids. Ovanan is ruled by an oppressive oligarchy called the Hierarchy which uses the Avatar as the enforcer of their cruel domination. The problem is only one Avatar can exist at a time, and Ovanan already has one. When their Avatar's power is crippled by interference from Liana's emerging talent, the Hierarchy decides Liana must die so their rule can continue. Meanwhile, a resistance movement on Ovanan is interested in using Jason and Liana to kill and replace the current Avatar, overthrow the Hierarchy, and establish democracy. The Avatar himself is actually a member of the resistance (though the resistance is unaware of this) and is helping to carry out their plan, though he obviously has an agenda of his own. Of course, human agencies are also pursuing the siblings, oblivious to the existence of Ovanan but well aware of the power Liana possesses, .

With so much going on in the plot, how could I have remembered this series as dull? Well, mostly it's just a matter of time. A DISTANT SOIL began back in the eighties, serialized by WaRP Graphics and collected by Donning/Starblaze Graphics in the volumes IMMIGRANT SONG and KNIGHTS OF THE ANGEL. But then in 1991, the creator, Colleen Doran, began to self-publish the story under the company name Aria Press. Starting over from the beginning, Doran revamped the artwork and script to make the story "new and improved," eventually moving on to totally new material by the twelfth issue. To make a living, Doran had to spend a lot of time working on other books for DC and Marvel, causing A DISTANT SOIL to appear only one to four times a year. Fortunately, Image Comics picked up the title, enabling Doran to produce it on a bimonthly schedule, resulting in seven issues within the last year. Unfortunately, my interest in the series had waned during the long drought, and I suddenly found myself adrift. I had trouble telling the characters apart and keeping track of the story despite a helpful plot summary at the start of each issue. I rediscovered over the past two days of reading that Doran is writing a major novel here, and it really needs to be read in large chunks. Thankfully, the first trade paperback collection of the new series is on the way so new readers can catch up in the manner this book should be read, 240 pages at a time.

The revised "Immigrant Song" and "Knights of the Angel" story arcs have been collected into THE GATHERING. This massive collection introduces all the major characters (boy, are there a lot of 'em!) and kicks off the saga. The "gathering" refers mostly to the Avatar's gathering of a strike team of humans on Earth. Having found Liana before anyone else, he intends to use the element of surprise and assault the Hierarchy on their own ground. He seeks out humans with strong wills and fighting capabilities and even manages to find some with magical talent. Meanwhile, Jason falls into the hands of the Hierarchy but is quickly stolen away by the resistance. Be forewarned, the collection will end on a bit of a cliffhanger.

The next story arc, "Ascension," tells of the strike team's trip to the Hierarchy's base. It's an interlude, wherein the team receives training and various political, personal, and romantic intrigues are developed. Jason, meanwhile, is being indoctrinated into the resistance movement in preparation for assassinating the Avatar. This story arc is nearly complete, and it too should be collected in a trade paperback shortly. The saga, however, still has quite a way to go before the conclusion will be reached.

"Seasons of Spring" is the ongoing backup story in A DISTANT SOIL. It won't be included in THE GATHERING, but I'm sure it too will be collected after its completion sometime in the future. "Seasons of Spring" presents a gentle family drama, the story of Jason and Liana's early childhood. We get to meet characters -- Aeren, his wife, and twin daughters -- who are only talked about in the main storyline. We see the family dealing with the children's developing powers and the need to keep those powers secret. This prequel has a much different tone from THE GATHERING but is still engaging.

Colleen Doran is an accomplished professional. Known primarily as an artist, her work has appeared in a variety of titles from a variety of publishers. While she usually only does one or two issues of any given title, she had a long stint doing the artwork for DC Comic's VALOR a couple years back. Her artwork is marvelous; she is well-practiced and confident in her style. Her characters all tend to be drawn very pretty, be they male or female. The black and white format tends to make a few of the characters look very similar, but a close reading and attention to wardrobe can help keep them distinguishable. Her writing skills are demonstrated by her amazing ability to give every member of the large cast of characters a unique identity while expertly juggling the many different plotlines.

I just want to mention that A DISTANT SOIL is for mature readers only. There are some brief scenes of nudity and a few obscene words which would be inappropriate for kids, but, frankly, kids would be bored by the long sequences of dialogue anyhow. Readers of a conservative bent may not appreciate the sexual content; bisexuality is presented and handled very matter-of-factly.

Having had the opportunity to read the entire series again, I shall be eagerly awaiting the new issues once more. If you're a long-time reader of the book, I suggest you take the time to read them again. You might even consider buying the trade paperback just for the convenience of future readings. If you've never read A DISTANT SOIL before, you're missing one of the most involving science fiction/fantasy novels to be found in comics. Let the trade paperback be your entrance into a wonderful experience.

Grade: A-

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

What looks like a Madonna (cf., big mall hair) (or fill in any eighties title or musical group or character here) (Baywatch?) space opera appears to actually be initially set in the eighties, though it also takes place in space and in King Arthur’s England. It’s a fantasy/science fiction tale with a nod to, well, almost everything. As Neil Gaiman explains in his introduction, Doran began drawing and writing this when she was twelve, self-published it in 1987, and had it reprinted in 1997 after lots of legal troubles. It’s the story of a young girl, Liana, who has been living with her older brother Jason in some kind of mental institution run by some oppressive group called The Hierarchy (which a decade earlier she might have called The Man), which they escape only to encounter a warship sent by her father to assassinate her. They gotta fight that power. Liana’s heir to an alien religious dynasty and she is also the most powerful psychic being in the universe, so there’s that going in her favor.

In Volume One: The Gathering, Liana and Jason get separated and in their separate places try to recruit all sorts of people for different factions of their revolution. Like the Knights of the Round Table and Egyptian deities and anything in the fairy kingdom. There’s so many aspects of the story that it is difficult to keep track of. There’s a lot of characters just barely introduced, and there’s not a lot of work on characterization, period.

The artwork—while amazing for a teenager—feels like it is done by someone, say, who is still very young. The story and art seem to improve near the end, and I am told in later volumes she keeps getting better, but this was difficult for me in places to read, aside from its historical value as a kind of space opera from the eighties. Some of the characters seem androgynous or gender queer, some are actually gay couples, so there’s something a little forward-thinking in it from that perspective, given the time it was published.

On the whole it is a mix of things for me: It’s joyful, it’s too complicated, it’s kind of a mess, it’s earnest and also sort of trippy. Neil Gaiman is right when he says of Doran that in her youthful enthusiasm she doesn’t know any better than to cram just everything including the kitchen sink into her story, which is both its strength from a certain angle, and its weakness. But if you like ambitious epic fantasy stories, you’ll have fun here. I bet if you really get deep into the series it could be really cool.

[Alexis Hall]

Okay. This is actually mine.

I think Doran started this when she was in the womb or something and you can sort of tell because it's very much the sort of story a twelve-year-old would tell. And I don't mean that as an insult: it's exuberant, imaginative, full of joy, undisciplined and incoherent.

It's a kind of space opera, I guess, about two magic children and some kind of wildly convoluted plot to overthrow an oppressive regime called the Hierarchy. Like the guy who empowers the Hierarchy - known as the Avatar - is also the leader of the resistance.

And they careen about trying to recruit people to this cause.

And also encountering other people randomly. I swear to God there are like eight separate groups of rebels all of whom are rebelling against subtly different things.

Also Knights of the Round Table.

Also Ancient Egyptian deities.

Also fairies? Maybe?

And many many interchangeably androgynous men. Some of whom are actually women.

And gayness.

I have literally no idea what's going on with this at all but the art -- while slightly tilted towards the portrayal of interchangeably androgynous men -- is lovely and unique. Especially in later volumes as Doran's style matures.

[HeavyReader · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this story really hard to follow. The drawings are all in black and white, and the male characters look really similar, making it difficult for me to remember who's who. Not exactly my cup of tea, but not terrible either.

[Online Eccentric Librarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/

I've read Colleen Doran's A Distant Soil since it premiered in the back of Elfquest in the 1980s and was glad to see it reprinted again in a collected trade paperback. It's now available to a whole new audience to really get into and enjoy.

When it debuted, it was by far one of the most original and intriguing comic stories I had ever read. A huge cast of characters, from all kinds of genres and backgrounds (fantasy, urban, mythical, young, old, science fiction, alien...) form a broad sweeping space opera of a story involving politics, political statements, and human interrelations. No one was ever what they appeared and with that large a cast of characters, there were discoveries aplenty to be found as the story slowly unfolded.

For those who have read the series, this new edition is reedited for current political situations (e.g., cold war references), has been restored after the original scans/art had been lost by the publisher, but is fairly intact from the original Immigrant Song. Although I still prize the original exquisite all-pencil sketches from the Elfquest years, I respect that this was a much more sustainable format for her story. Due to the reediting and restoration, I found it to be subtly much more cohesive. And a bit less dated (as can be expected of an urban fantasy from 30 years ago).

For those who have never read the series, you're in for a treat. This really is a full fledged space opera of vast proportions - the story mainly following a sibling pair who have supernatural powers and, it turns out, are illicit heirs to an intergalactic empire of unimaginable power - an empire that is built upon enslaving worlds. There are elaborate caste systems, magic, technology, and then the fantasy: from Arthurian myths to an Egyptian cat goddess. The artwork in the beginning will be very definitely set in the 1980s but don't let that distract you - once we get to the alien ship, the drawings and set up are absolutely gorgeous.

I've followed the trials and setbacks of the author/artist - the many lawsuits, ownership issues, and quest for artist rights and protections. Then the calamitous bankruptcy of her third publisher and loss of the originals (required for republication). It's a relief to see that things are finally coming together for this long standing series - and that it is finally reaching its end after all these years.

A Distant Soil is a true original - then as well as now. Highly recommended.

Provided as an ARC by the publisher.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Colleen Doran, A Distant Soil, vol. I (1998, Image Entertainment)

I should preface this by saying that Colleen Doran's A Distant Soil is the first graphic novel I've read since The Watchmen, some thirteen years ago, and so I may be missing some of the subtleties involved. If so, mea culpa.

I've just finished the first volumes of the A Distant Soil trilogy (at least, it's a trilogy as of this writing), and I've been trying to decide whether I want to continue on with the other two books in the series. Still haven't decided one way or the other. Doran seems to be trying (as Neil Gaiman says in his introduction to the book) to cram just a little too much into the space provided.

The story centers on a brother and sister who have grown up in a mental institution-cum-research facility. Both have psychic powers, but are unaware of the extent of those powers, as are their keepers. The two of them, after a crisis situation, escape and are separated. They find themselves aiding two different (and possibly conflicting; it's impossible to tell) branches of an alien resistance force, along with an odd assortment of characters both alien and human, including Galahad (yes, THAT Galahad).

There is, without doubt, a lot going on here. And once you've got a handle on things, you can probably keep track of it all, but it takes much longer to get a handle on things than it should. Again, Gaiman's introduction rings true here; Doran's work got better as she got older. If you're willing to get through the earlier parts in order to get to the later stuff, you'll find much to enjoy here.

The problem, though, is that some of the failings persist until the end of the novel. Cuts in location and time aren't indicated in any way, and the segues remain jarring throughout. The atmosphere is minimal; a good thing in some cases when telling a story, but generally not so good when one is working in the graphic realm. (One of the things that made The Watchmen so excellent was Moore's constant use of atmospheric detail, which is lacking here.)

Hard to really say. I liked it, but I still haven't figured out whether I'm going on to volume II. ** ½

[Eoghann Irving · Rating 1 out of 5]

I recognize that A Distant Soil is a highly significant comic book for several reasons including its self-published status and having same gender couples as prominent characters. And so for those reasons I would probably recommend that people read this for themselves.

Unfortunately at least for me, this doesn't have much else to recommend it. I like a lot of Colleen Doran's artwork, but not this early stuff. I find it too stiff and cold and a lot of the characters faces are very samey.

To make matters worse the early sections of the book contain some major info-dump portions without nearly enough in the way of character building. The end result unfortunately is I just don't care about these people and what they're doing.

There are some interesting ideas being thrown about in here but they just didn't keep my attention. There are some Arthurian references going on which will probably appeal to some, but I grow increasingly tired with Arthurian myth being thrown into anything and everything.

It's entirely possible that later volumes better justify the praise this series receives, but based on this volume, it's doing nothing for me.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

SO (too) WEIRD.

but amazing hair.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll admit I didn't like this book at first, but by the end I was blown away by it. There are many books like A Distant Soil, but unlike those books Colleen Doran is able to balance the multiple storylines and mythos that she creates in this book. Much like Neil Gaiman's Sandman series which was able to create a completely new world that seemed just under or behind or before or after our own, Doran establishes a society of beings that live in the universe of human beings and wraps her narrative in the story of two young people who finds themselves pawns of government agencies before they find refuge in friends that include a police officer, a street tough, a novelist, fashion designers, a pair of queer lovers from the alien world that hold the secrets to these two young people's lives.

Readers who enjoy elaborate backstories and fantastic empires of alien worlds are sure to be satisfied by the book, but for my own part what left me spellbound was the art. using just black and white Doran is able to create moments and images that have never been seen before and are sure to leave the reader with a real feeling of the sublime. Doran believes that she can create amazing, incredible sights that have never existed before, and in this book she has succeeded.

[Evan Kingston · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very exciting and engrossing introduction to this sci-fi/fantasy epic. Switching between 80's America to outer-space to the time of King Arthur, the scenes last just long enough to get invested but not long enough to fully understand what is happening. I felt pulled along by my own wonder and curiosity throughout and can't wait to see if the next volume can start fulfilling the massive promises of this beginning.

While all the art is beautiful, I did have some trouble with the stylistic switches. I guess Doran worked on this through several editions for many years as her style grew, but it occasionally makes it hard to recognize characters from one page to the next and makes the whole thing feel slightly disjointed (the lettering changes, throughout, to similar effect). With that one minor drawback, though, I am glad Doran spent time revising and reworking this story--a rarity in the comics field--because this truly feels like someone's life's work, full of years of wisdom, skill, and craft.

[Wayne McCoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colleen Doran began writing A Distant Soil when she was twelve. Neil Gaiman gives a great tribute to this and the stories he wrote when he was 12, and how Colleen's saw print and his didn't (sort of).

This is an epic story of a brother and sister who are espers, aliens, cops and gangsters and even a knight from King Arthur's round table shows up. It seems like every few pages another character is showing up. In another story, that would seem to be too much, but it's all done pretty well here.

The art has been digitally restored, and you can really see the artistic progress from the beginning of this graphic novel until the end. The characters hair and clothes are very much from the 80s, with everyone sporting big hair. The characters look a bit similar in the way they are drawn, so I got confused occasionally, but the backgrounds in the later issues reminded me of the cosmic comics of the 1970s like Doctor Strange and the Silver Surfer. It's a fun book.

[Amal El-Mohtar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I REALLY like this! Oh man it is SO '80s it's amazing, and is doing ALL THE THINGS, and the men are SO PRETTY and look like ladies and it makes me happy that they do, and there are loads of brown people, and it hits all my kids-with-powers-on-the-run buttons (I have a lot of buttons!) and it's just super enjoyable and the art is like if Aubrey Beardsley were born in the late '60s and it's just so coooool.

I want to read more! More more more!

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Colleen Doran's earliest comics work shows the heights of her imaginative prowess despite the rather messy and contrived narrative. A Distant Soil was Doran's first major push into comics as she began writing and drawing this when she was twelve. It follows the story of a young girl named Liana who lives with her older brother Jason inside a mental institution run by a clandestine group known as the Hierarchy. Liana and Jason demonstrate some degree of psychic powers which are of keen interest of study within the institution. The pair end up escaping and living on the streets for some time only to be picked up by an alien warship where Liana learns that she is heir to an ancient religious dynasty and is one of the most powerful psychics in the universe. This first volume delves deep into the world-building and here Doran derives from Arthurian legends, Ancient Egyptian mythology and much more. It's really dense and creative stuff, but also seems rather unsystematic in execution. There are a ton of characters introduced in this first volume and barely any of them have any characterization either.

The artwork is striking as to be expected from Doran's distinguished expressive style, but unlike many of her other comics which feature warm watercolors, A Distant Soil is entirely in black and white. There is a roughness to the artwork here too that isn't as noticeable in her later works, which demonstrates the evolution of her artistic vision. It's impressive effort from a young artist and the growth in her style does seem more apparent with subsequent issues. The comic has a sense of wide-eyed optimism and glee to it amidst the darker subject matter, and the exuberant artwork matches well to it. The prose itself is a bit clunky and meandering, which is easily explained by the minimal editorial oversight that this early work would have been subjected to. For a first effort, this is pretty impressive even if the comic itself isn't the most engaging read.

[Sean O · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodreads app crashed and ate my review. Fuck this enshittified site.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this big gay space opera ugh

[Elizabeth Reuter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colleen Doran is a fan of many geeky things: superheroes, shoujo manga, sci-fi, epic fantasy, galaxy-spanning romance. When she began A Distant Soil over twenty years ago as a kid, she put all of them into it. Which could have been a wreck, but thankfully turned out innovative instead.

The beautiful, psychic Ovanon have spent centuries spreading across the galaxy, enslaving other alien races. Now they've arrived on Earth, unaware that earlier Ovanon exiles and explorers, some with children, are already here. Especially powerful is a young girl named Liana, contacted by an underground rebellion leader named Rieken (they're on the cover). They must pull together all the supernatural forces Earth has to offer--warriors from other dimensions, fairies, shape-shifers, and one homeless guy who shows up in the wrong place at the wrong time--before the Ovanan attack, or Earth will become just one more conquered territory...if we're lucky.

A Distant Soil, while full of action involving superpowers, spaceships, and laser guns, is a character-focused story. The large cast sometimes spends pages having conversations about themselves, their histories, their worlds. There are few hyper-masculine characters and much of the cast is emotional and talkative. Doran uses this to the story's advantage, creating arcs of character intrigue and doing her conversations with such great dialogue that the story never gets boring.

The art is beautiful, highly detailed and intricate, from grungy scenes in back alleys to luxurious Ovanan apartments decorated with carved crystals and flowers. The shoujo manga influence shows in Doran's clear preference for the latter, resulting in a lot of pretty people in elegant settings. If you're not into very pretty art this won't work for you, but Doran's level of skill shouldn't fail to impress you even then.

Fans of fantasy or sci-fi looking for a new approach to an old formula should check this out.

-Elizabeth Reuter
Author, The Demon of Renaissance Drive

[Alex Sarll]

So eighties that it includes a tough cop with impressive hair called Minetti - despite being a space operatic fantasy! He's just one of the oddball gang of humans rounded up to help overthrow the tyrannical alien regime who were pursuing the psychic kids (whom we initially took for the leads but who then get slightly sidelined) whose powers are of course down to them being half-alien and in one case the obligatory Chosen One. Also, Sir Galahad, who's involved because of a mystic gate that may be connected to the aliens' long interaction with Earth, or may just be the sort of thing that happens to Sir Galahad. Doran started this in her teens, and was thinking about the story earlier still, and it shows; Neil Gaiman talks about his own unwritten childhood epic having a similar more-the-merrier approach to genre, and I know the stories I sketched out around that age had much the same spirit: everything plus the kitchen sink, and the kitchen sink had better be a cyborg ninja. Still, unlike me she actually got hers down on paper and out into the world and made fans, and that's no small difference. The early issues here are pretty unpolished, and in many cases suffer from the intervening decades having made things that were original into cliches, and things that were already cliches into painful ones. But there are still some absolutely gorgeous panels which suggest what an amazing artist Doran would mature into, and I can certainly see how in the less diverse comics marketplace 30 years back, when the self-publishing boom was just getting underway, the charm of this story would outweigh the clunkiness.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's hard to review this book objectively as I felt I was travelling back in time to when I was a teenager in the eighties, with all the disorientation and nostalgia that would involve. This is the kind of sprawling, epic SF comic I loved back then and it's very much of its time, from the illustration style to the fashions the characters wear. As I read it I alternated between cringing at how dated it was and relishing the retro feel.

The illustrations are beautifully detailed, some in an elaborate, flowing art nouveau style which reminded me of Moebius. Faces, however, are not as well done, and don't do much to determine either character or emotion. The world building is effective, involving complex warring factions and a convincing alien 'magic' system. The story leaps around between different groups of characters and while this helps to develop the elaborate plot, it disrupts the tension of the individual stories and can be confusing. There are an indeterminate number of androgynous characters with luxuriant blonde hair and I lost track of who was who at several points. The pace is relentless, but atmosphere and character development are sacrificed as a result. I was wasn't emotionally engaged by the story or particularly interested in what would happen in the next installment.

This will have huge appeal to Gen X comic fans looking for a nostalgia trip (and I'm sure there are many of them) but for new readers it may be too dated and lacking in dramatic weight.

[Cale · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm going to have to disagree with Neil Gaiman and Harlan Ellison on this one - this first volume of Colleen Doran's 25+ year magnum opus did not age well. This first volume feels very much of the early 90s and did not capture my interest. Liana and Seren and all of Siovansin's political plotting don't so much intrigue as overwhelm. This book feels like it has everything but the kitchen sink, as most aptly evidenced by issue three, which, out of nowhere, is suddenly dealing with the Knights of the Round Table. Yes it gets tied into the main plot, but it's a serious divergence from the previous issues and it gives whiplash when reading through in one volume.
One thing I will say, the black and white art is beautiful - Doran's art shines in this format, and there are many pages that have amazing work on them - the city-meteor of Siovansin especially gets to shine. But the characters are confusing, the method of gathering the heroes is absurd, and the two big battles that close out the book don't really make sense either visually or story-wise.
The idea that there are four more volumes of this coupled with my apathy to the plot at the end of this volume is enough for me to know I don't need to read any more. Maybe it really does grow and mature in the later volumes, but there's not enough spark in the story here for me to tough it out.

[Nytetyger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this as an addition to another comic I was reading at the time-- it was the pencils, enclosed as a free trial.... and then when that company produced a few issues, I eagerly grabbed them... and then it stopped in MID STORY LINE!

Then I saw it again years alter in a graphic novel paperback... bought those... but then could not find it and again never got to the end of the story.

THIS version has some updated text, although I'm not really thrilled with some changes to the art, I can understand why they were done-- having seen the original pencils, that sort of work would have killed any artist. And the story itself still stands as DARN good and really entertaining.

If you like dystopian storytelling, old style SF, or just darn good stories and are NOT going to freak at some alternate sexuality (no, this is not porn, but sadly in this age there are still those who cannot deal with gay characters or anything else not in their personal universe) PLEASE go pick this up... enjoy it... thank me later

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written is a very classic sort of 80s space opera style, A Distant Soil tells the story about two psychically powered siblings who discover they have a role to play in the future of the alien civilization they didn't know they were a part of.

ADS tells a story epic in scope while at the same time deeply personal. The plot is clearly developed, the characters are well-established; as a result, this feels like you're already several chapters into the book, rather than starting at number 1. My only complaint about the book would be that it seems like a bit of a kitchen-sink type approach; Doran throws in everything she's interested in, from Medieval knights to aliens to psychic powers, and I'm not entirely sure if it all fits together nicely. We'll have to see how she fares with volume 2.

[Kifflie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been a very long time since I read the first part of this story, and it was great to revisit these characters. Although, to be honest, there probably are too many of them, and Doran's art style makes it hard for me to distinguish some of them from each other.

It's still a good story, though. Brother and sister with mysterious psychic powers, trapped in a mental institution, sought after by the alien race that spawned them. They get plenty of help from Earthlings (a street kid, a police officer, a Russian author, two artistic grifters), along with rebels among the alien types. Why Galahad from the Arthurian mythos shows up is still a bit of a head-scratcher at this point.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to believe that I've been following this series for 22 years now, and this is the first time I have re-read this material since its first publication in the early Nineties. While some of the art is dated (that hair! those clothes!), the story is strong, although it doesn't go very far in this initial volume. The extensive restoration of the material looks great, and I look forward to reading the rest as A Distant Soil finally moves toward its long-delayed conclusion.

[Sarah Churchill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Switching scenes between 80s America, outer-space and the time of King Arthur, wevisit each just enough to invest in the story, without time to fully understand what's happening. This propelled me through the volume, filled with curiosity.

The art is beautiful, and it's great to see a 're-mastered' edition of a classic graphic novel that I wasn't around to experience the first time around.

[Stacey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried to get through this, I really did. But, after reading the first installment, it just wasn't working. For some reason, comics/books with otherworldly/alien creatures never seem to quite make sense to me.

[Lewis Manalo · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's something so irresistibly sincere in the craziness if this sci-fi comic book. With a cast of dreamy boys, one of whom loses all of his clothes when he uses his powers, ADS has a clear target audience, but if you accept it for the fantasy that it is, anyone can get caught up in this story.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

re-read 4/12/2013
I'd *really* like to buy the new edition... checking amazon.com gc balance...

[Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing gay gender queer graphic novel series

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully drawn story with intricate world-building. A personal fave.

[Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quirky and fun, and had a definite "feminine" vibe to it - something refreshing in sci-fi.