Nocterra #1

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Nocterra #1 was published on ‎ March 3, 2021 and according to Comixology I purchased it on March 4th. At that time I was really on the lookout for new comics as I was finally able to really get into reading comic books after discovering the Guided Reading feature in Comixology. It allowed me to really engage with comics in a way that I hadn’t been able to before and I was checking every day for new things to read.

I didn’t know what I liked at the time but I knew what I was really drawn in by … cover art and panel style. I liked that the cover of Nocterra had a woman on it but it wasn’t all hypersexualized and gross. That was the first thing that appealed to me … and that she was a woman of color. There were a lot of people of color and that was something I deeply appreciated. Sometimes when comic artists draw visions of the future, there are no people of color there … and I think that’s done on purpose because they just can’t imagine them there and don’t want them there. Nocterra is about a brother and sister of color and I love that.

I didn’t, and still don’t, know much about comic authors so I had no idea who Scott Snyder was. I think I saw from the description that he did some superhero comics, which do not appeal to me, and I saw he also did WYTCHES which I had read. That was all I knew going into Nocterra and that’s how I like it.

I don’t remember why I stopped reading the series … I think maybe because I ran out of money for comics but I also remember reading up to a point where I thought it was over. I remember hearing back then that there were going to be Netflix shows in the works based on WYTCHES and Nocterra but I guess that hasn’t happened yet or maybe never will? Either way, I wanted to go back and read it again and write my thoughts about it here on my blog.

Issue 1 blew me away when I first read it back in 2021 and it did the same just now. I remembered it vaguely but I’ve read a lot more comics since then and I’ve developed different kinds of appreciation for graphic storytelling as well. Coming at this first issue again makes me wonder how they never got a TV series off the ground because this is screaming for adaptation.

I have a hard time following a lot of action on a page which is why the Guided Reading option really changed the way I could interact with graphic novels and comics. Sometimes, when there is a lot going on, my brain tries to take in everything at once and I get overwhelmed and lost. When you add in a very unique or abstract art style or complex paneling it can become too much for me to take in. Being able to go panel by panel, frame by frame and take in all that is going on in a little bit at a time, allows for me to process everything slowly and also very dramatically just like a film.

Some people can look at a page on the left in one moment and move from dialog bubble to dialog bubble and grasp what is happening instantly. For me … looking at all of that at once is just … different and uncontrollably messy. Going from one panel to the next, taking in the whole image, reading the dialog or narrative sections, and then moving through the rest of the scene allows for a unique kind of tension to build. I love this page right from the start. The way it goes from the reflection, to her, to the truck is something I just loved experiencing. It’s very simple while also being very dramatic and it sets the scene well.

Light and darkness are very important to the story and the artwork reflects that extremely well. There are so many opportunities where you can FEEL the importance of both.

There are moments, in every comic I read, where I do have to turn off the Guided View and take in the entire page at once. There are moments where that is absolutely necessary to do so and it’s usually when there is some revelation being shown or something just really breathtaking that gives you more of a complete picture of what you’re experiencing. It’s like going from a narrow to a wide shot. Sometimes, the transition is so powerful, so visceral, that you can feel it … and even hear it … or maybe that’s just because of my synesthesia.

I don’t usually like dystopian entertainment. I didn’t in the past – when a truly dystopian future seemed like fantasy or pessimism – but I really don’t like it these days when we’re living in such absolutely dark times and people are dying, being disappeared, being hurt, and being left behind. In my mind there is no light in the future and things will be only getting darker and darker … so reading Nocterra now in 2025 is very different from when I was reading it in 2021.

My 2025 lens sees Nocterra this way: The fear, the misery, the suffering, the loss of life … it’s all a bit too much and while I think Nocterra, at it’s heart, is supposed to be about strength, resilience, and hope in dark times, I find such sentiments to be incredibly unrealistic and typical of white privilege especially penned by a white male who has written a story where the main characters are two ethnic children who were adopted by a white couple.

As I have said many times in my writing … MEDIA.IS.SUBJECTIVE. It is different for every person who experiences it based on who they are and what their lived experience has been.

These days seeing a woman on the front of a comic book, especially a woman of color, sets people off and starts them down a road of hate and accusing comics of being “woke”. (There were people saying Nocterra was woke back in 2022. The racism in the comic world is loud and constant.) For someone like me who is a Black woman, seeing a woman of color on the front of a comic book fills me with such a great feeling of excitement especially when she is depicted in a non-exploitative way.

Everyone is different. Everyone has different reasons for being drawn to, or disgusted by, different kinds of media. The key is asking yourself why you feel what you feel about the art you consume and what those feelings say about you and your lived experience. Are your feelings justified? Are they part of a collective brainwashing campaign to make you hate everything not about you? Are you seeing art for what it is or only as what you wish it was?

This comic was written in a very different time … a bad time, but not so bad as now. Reading this series now from issue 1, I will choose to see Nocterra as a story with a positive focus and message and try to filter it through a 2021 lens, not a 2025 lens.

At no time am I able to forget that “strong women” from the perspective of male gaze are still merely objects to be exploited and sexualized. When it comes to comics these kinds of shots are harder to ignore because it could be drawn ANY KIND OF WAY but that was the choice … the moment of vulnerability that has to also be an ass shot. This isn’t something I see in the same genre as The Forged where I kind of expect that Flash Gordonesque, Barbarellaness stuff. I take The Forged in the spirit in which the story is supposed to be taken whereas Nocterra is just … “hey make this an ass shot”.

It is what it is. This is the world.

I did read a lot of white male opinions about Val and how she’s unlikeable.

I didn’t think she was unlikeable. I thought she was realistic and that’s something that boys don’t like in their escapism comics, especially the ones where women are the focus. Val doesn’t cater to what they believe she should be and that makes her unlikeable or weak or annoying when she’s very much the opposite.

I mentioned that there were some very visceral moments in this issue for me but one moment really stands out for me. It was a moment that made me breathless and gave me goosebumps actually …

You’ll have to read the comic to understand this moment in context … and it’s the context that makes it so incredible and so powerful for me. This moment really tells me a lot about who Val is … and how she functions in the world she is now a part of.

I like Val. I like her no nonsense attitude and when I look at everything she does and WHY I don’t see an unlikeable or weak person. I see someone who very much cares about other people and her brother especially. I see someone hardened by the harsh reality she lives in and making the best decisions on how to care for those she loves.

She’s not perfect. She’s very human.

Nocterra #1 does a great job of setting up the world, setting up the characters, establishing the plot, and pretty much giving you everything you need to begin this journey with Val and her brother Emory. By the time you finish those pages you know who these people are and what’s at stake and there is enough mystery to have you dying to know what is coming next. You have enough questions to make you desperate for the next issue and enough menace to make you worried for what that issue will hold.

It’s going to be an amazing road trip.