Tags
alien, biology, dan loeb, fructus seminalis, indie, indie box, Indie Comics, maxim mel, science fiction, Silent Issue, wildlife
Fructus Seminalis—Latin for “original fruit”—is a gorgeously crafted, nearly wordless one-shot comic book about the life cycle of an alien lifeform who rears its young on a nameless planet beneath a colorful sky lit by two suns. It brings to mind Jim Woodring’s work on Frank, except the funny animals have been replaced with alien animals, and the surrealist adventures are patterned after a nature documentary.
This is the first comic by writer Dan Loeb, with artist Maxim Mel creating top-notch inks and colors to make it come alive. You don’t even need to take my word for how awesome it is, because Loeb has made the digital edition available at no cost in PDF, though you can choose your own price if you want to help support this creative endeavor. You can also get the print edition—which I highly recommend—for $10 plus $5 shipping to USA locations.
I was so impressed with the PDF that I paid to add the print edition to my indie comics collection, and I’m glad I did. Printed on high-quality glossy paper with a heavier cardstock cover, it’s an impressive production that clearly cut no corners and spared no expense in the pursuit of bringing the creators’ artistic vision to life.
Some readers might, at first, find the story confusing. Not everyone has been reading challenging, wordless sci-fi masterpieces such as Ricardo Delgado’s Hieroglyph as long as I have. But don’t let that scare you away. The final page of the book provides a brief but thorough textual explanation of all the biological events you just witnessed, immediately prompting a second read-through.
One of my favorite things about this comic is how it provides several cross-sections of these alien animals feeding. Loeb and Mel don’t just want us to observe from the outside; they want to take us inside, too. The only thing I can compare these pages to is The Machinery of Life by David Goodsell, a non-fiction book about human cellular biology that has ground-breaking illustrations of what is happening in our bodies’ cells on a molecular level.
I can’t say enough good things about Fructus Seminalis, and thankfully I don’t need to. Go grab a PDF copy for free or whatever you can pay, and I think you’ll agree that picking up the print edition will be well worth it.
Collector’s Guide: The digital and print editions of Fructus Seminalis are available at https://builtinadaycomic.gumroad.com/