What is this book about? Sam’s predictable and boring life suddenly changes one day as he wakes up to utter chaos with news of stock market crash, spreading bird flu, missing radioactive materials, bombs exploding everywhere, and other calamities including the destruction of his city, Seattle. He goes to sleep that night and wakes up next morning to a normal day where nothing has changed. He is still stuck in a dead-end job with an overbearing boss (Jan) who insults and belittles his work at every chance, and his materialistic girlfriend (Maria) who is as much of an airhead as she has always been. As his life flips between the two timelines, Sam uses his knowledge of one to influence the consequences of other.

What I liked: Harvey Award winner and 4-time Eisner Award nominee Matt Kindt’s take on a theme that has otherwise been done to death. I am a big fan of post-apocalyptic genre and Kindt has done it justice. I loved the newsfeed scroll across the bottom of the pages with page numbers integrated therein, and I really liked the way section numbers are drawn.

What I disliked: The art. Kindt is going for the minimalist style here but the pages looked unfinished to me.

Round-up: Although not an original concept, Revolver kept me engrossed. It is a gripping story. Flipping between the timelines is seamless as Kindt draws alternating timelines in different colours. Overall, a pretty engaging read. ( )

This graphic novel tells the story of a man who consistently goes to sleep in one world (where he is a miserable failure editing party photos at a newspaper) and wakes up in another world (an apocalyptic nightmare world where he borders on action hero). At first he is confused and disoriented but eventually he learns to control his understanding of the shifts back and forth and to use the knowledge/skills/attitude he gains in the apocalyptic world to drive events back in his ordinary world.

The comic is drawn sparsely with only a few colors -- and the color scheme shifts between the two worlds as does the "chron" running at the bottom of the page with news updates.

Overall I enjoyed it and found it compelling and memorable. With the caveat that having read only three other graphic novels in my adult life, I don't have a super-strong basis for comparison. ( )

Rough blue-scale art with heavy lining, telling a story of someone who slips between two possible realities - one terrible, the other painfully mundane, as he tries to sort out who he is and how he wants to live. ( )

Creative take on the concept of alternate reality. The drawings and presentation of the book was outstanding. The story was compelling. This was a rare instance where the ending was stronger than the middle. Overall a good mind-F story, could have had a little something more in the middle - to some extent felt like story was just taking off when it landed. ( )

This graphic novel tells the story of a man who consistently goes to sleep in one world (where he is a miserable failure editing party photos at a newspaper) and wakes up in another world (an apocalyptic nightmare world where he borders on action hero). At first he is confused and disoriented but eventually he learns to control his understanding of the shifts back and forth and to use the knowledge/skills/attitude he gains in the apocalyptic world to drive events back in his ordinary world.

The comic is drawn sparsely with only a few colors -- and the color scheme shifts between the two worlds as does the "chron" running at the bottom of the page with news updates.

Overall I enjoyed it and found it compelling and memorable. With the caveat that having read only three other graphic novels in my adult life, I don't have a super-strong basis for comparison. ( )