3 out of 5

Admittedly, the main draw here for me was Alchemichael’s clean and crisp linework, which again displays the same tight, vaguely European style as the Brandon Graham / Simon Roy school of things but – to my attention span’s appreciation – much less busy and much more consistently, pleasingly designed.  Given a well-suited, bright splash of colors by Pete Toms, the book is an easy joy to flip through.

Seth Jacob’s multi-dimension rescue mission / attempted mind effrontery has a good tagline – an agent is recruited for this particular mission due to his being the least likely candidate to be driven insane by it – but, like a lot of sci-fi shorts, it doesn’t have enough room to really sell its own pitch, and so said agent’s travels are somewhat lacking in the Wow factor.  The social commentary gobbledygook from the mad scientist at quest’s end feels a bit tacked on for meaning, as well, but it does all give way to a satisfying Twilight Zone ending.  And it should be said: Jacob’s dialogue was well-paced, and he had a good handle on applying sci-fi tropes without over-explaining anything, but doing something fresh and with bite in this genre in a few pages is a pretty tall order, and overall, Heart of Weirdness gets to a three star level for that order.