The Masterplan

by Scott Mills

Scott Mills, the critically acclaimed cartoonist behind Cells, Big Clay Pot, and Trenches, does it again!
Carter Zacharias is a man with a mission, a scientist who will stop at nothing to save the universe itself from its unrelenting expansion...and God help any man, woman, or planet that gets in his way.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Science Fiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2003

Reviews

[Jan Philipzig · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I enjoyed the tension between the story's hard-science foundation and Mills' loose, almost sloppy drawing style, I found myself getting bored with its heavy reliance on dialogue. For the most part, the characters just talk about what happened and what will happen, when their trip through time and space could have been visualized and brought to life much more effectively.

[Tyler Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did like this better than Mills other books I've read (Trenches and Big Clay Pot) because, while I still have the same issues with Mills rushed and overly loose illustration style (see: my review of Trenches), I do think that there are some fun ideas here. In fact, while his other books seemed to be overly simplistic with just some basic ideas roughly sketched out, this book is practically tripping over its ideas. In the end, I actually would have enjoyed seeing some of them explored more in depth, and it would have been nice if Mills would have spent more time on character and technology design, so that the world would have seemed more fully realized. But, I did find the overall story interesting, and it kept me turning the pages through to the end.

[Jesse · Rating 1 out of 5]

Comes across as the scrawled doodlings of a physics student. The cartoons just didn't add anything to the story (it was hard to tell what was even going on in the pictures) and the foreshadowing came too late to have any real effect.

[H. Givens · Rating 5 out of 5]

1/30/2010:

A brilliant scientist drags his ex-wife and his brother along on a mission designed to keep the universe from expanding too far (gazillions of years in the future, when that might be a problem.)

This isn't a traditiional graphic novel... It reminds me of a webcomic more than anything else, except not designed to be read one strip at a time. The art is in black and white and minimalist, with the characters mostly just distinguishing characteristics with a hint of background behind them. It makes the reading really smooth, and it feels sort of wistful and pure. It suits the story.

This is a pure kind of sci-fi, very much about ideas and science and an intergalactic, universal scope. It's not science-y, it's very easy to understand and I don't know how accurate any of the theories might be, but it is about science. It's also about those three characters I mentioned, but it's not like we have to know every detail about them. We know how they feel. It's about travelling all over time and space, meeting aliens, robots, themselves, and other awesomeness, but its also touching and sad in a way that's hard to describe. Wistful.

03/21/2014:

This is the second or third time I've read it, and I still love it. I like the sci-fi, and I really love how distinctive the characters' personalities are even though we don't spend a lot of time describing them. It’s weird and wistful, like Matt Smith’s era of Doctor Who. It really works.

See also my list of books to read if you like Doctor Who: http://hannahgivens.wordpress.com/201...