5 out of 5

Simple beauty.  Respectful kid lit.  When Archaia scores, it really scores.  This sewn binding hardcover sells itself with little effort: the rust-red hue of the background juxtaposed against a graded silver text, framing a dusky colored cover image of all the principle elements – a farmer, a jetpackin’ boy, and a giant robot – frontis- and endpiece montages of related ephemera, and wonderfully thick, off-white pages that complement the duo-toned art.  Flipping through the pages you absorb the compositional skill subconsciously; though mostly using a widescreen technique, Lepp understands pacing and movement and space  to the extent that panel after panel of silent fields carry amazing emotion and depth.  Little touches that break up the scenery are the extras that seem easy but take careful consideration – when to use blurring, when to include foreground elements, when to give the sky a color wash, when to leave it blank… the only visual missteps are some odd narration placements which Lepp experiments with with breaking panel borders.  This works for the internal monologues, but when characters are speaking, his movement of the ‘camera’ from panel to panel and then a border-breaking word bubble can cause a hiccup in the flow.  But this is very minor.  The text justification and different fonts used for lead character Roman’s ‘thoughts’ (via a letter to his father, which forms the framing element for the tale) and the spoken dialogue are well chosen; even if the latter is just a dash stiff, the look seems right for the combination of machine and earth themes that pepper our story.

And what a story, told with so few words.  That there was a war between man and machine, and that at some point men started building machines to assist in the battle… and then eventually the war become machine versus machine.  Humans won, but the time inbetween seems to have left our race a few steps behind, working expansive, family-owned farms, trying to make their way, tinkering with old gadgetry to build ‘slave’ machines to help with simple chores.  Perhaps things are different elsewhere; Lepp purposefully keeps the focus to Roman and his family, so we cannot know.  But it’s a well-balanced mystery – you don’t feel at a loss for not knowing, and our time with these characters is fascinating enough to set the questions aside for later.  For, as Roman tells his father, things got odd when Jet turned up.  Jet, who always wears goggles, who has a wartime era jetpack, and who was being chased by a giant robot when Roman intervened.  Jet who looks like a boy but claims to have been in the war.

Lepp’s simple linework has that magic gift of being incredibly expressive, even though his figures (particularly the children) are very much caricatures.  It’s also nice that these are real people – despite this being a kid’s book, our characters each obviously have their ups and downs and flaws.  No one is a straight hero.

Like Jason Brubaker’s re:Mind, ‘Rust’ is an amazing achievement of wild ideas translated with a sort of plain-faced honesty to the page.  Jason’s book seemed more wrapped up in story, and so the pacing faltered under some narration.  While ‘Rust’ has made me eager to find out about the war and Jet, it silent grace in focusing on character responses makes it more about our / the character’s experience than some withheld twist.  And kudos to Archaia, as usual, for putting the deserved effort behind the packaging; the look and feel of Rust the book is integral to the enjoyment of its read.