This comic is an absolute masterpiece. Mathieu Bablet's art is just stunning, full of details and texture. This is a challenging story about a world that is dying and a woman who is trying to find bees dna to save humanity. I liked the melancholic atmosphere and the sadness of the protagonist. This comic will be staying with me for a long long time.

This was an excellent, excellent graphic novel for fans of stories that go deep into the human psyche. It's a brutal tale with impactful consequences, and I would definitely recommend to fans of Bablet's previous work.

Absolutely stunning art work, incredible environments, and an absurd amount of amazing detail. Elements of the plot/art brought to mind Miyazaki's Nausicaä comics, Snowpiercer, and the Escaflowne movie. The world is gritty, harsh, and striking. As Jenny documents her search for pollinators in this barren environment, we see the many challenges people must face, but also the ways in which they build community together. Jenny's maps navigate not only terrain, but her own dark inner struggles as well. Her journeys are mind boggling and unexpected (I won't spoil it here), and the level of thought and design put into them is impressive. There is a real sense of culture and history among the people of the Noon-Seeker, the roaming monad Jenny sometimes resides in. Her secretive comings and goings provide a sharp contrast to the rest of the monad family around her, and we see moments of both disagreement and beautiful connection.

I highly recommend Silent Jenny to anyone who loves detailed and immersive world building. Each element is carefully consider, from clothing and character design, to vehicles and tech, and the otherworldly environments it all takes place in. There is so much packed into this story that I already want to reread and absorb more of it.

I'm a sucker for any story about what happens after societal collapse. In this case, it comes after all pollinators have disappeared from the Earth, along with other various negative climate factors. The illustrations in this graphic novel are stunning. While there were times when I found the story a bit hard to follow, possibly because of the lack of narration or context, I was captivated by the visuals that pulled me from page to page. This novel left me thinking when I turned the final page, and that is always refreshing for me.

This was very interesting, this dystopian, post apocalyptic world was so cool. The art style was unique, and I loved the steampunk aesthetic this world had. The story had a good pace, most often I find these types of stories are very quick and a lot of events happen too quickly with little to no explanation, you are told everything and not shown enough. This story was very slow, not in a bad way by any means, I liked it. You really had to sit there will these characters, in their world, and experience everything with them. Overall, I thought this was very interesting and different story with immersive artwork.

Thank you NetGalley and Oni Press for the opportunity to read this ARC.

I devour every new release by Mathieu Bablet with the same eagerness. Now a staple of the French comic book scene, he continues his exploration of ambitious science fiction with *Silent Jenny*, following in the footsteps of *Carbone & Silicium* and *Shangri-La*. And, once again, what a masterpiece!

*Silent Jenny* plunges us into a dark, post-apocalyptic science fiction world. The outlook is bleak, but the story lets a glimmer of hope shine through with a message about passing on knowledge, resilience, and the need to keep moving forward despite uncertainty and fear of what tomorrow may bring.

We’re drawn into a grandiose universe of fascinating richness. The lore, characters, stakes, and details weave together naturally throughout the pages, without ever feeling like heavy-handed exposition. The reader is invited to observe, deduce, and immerse themselves in this teeming universe without being led by the hand. The author questions how we inhabit the world, the consequences of our actions, and our relationship with living things (let’s protect the bees!).

The artwork is as remarkable as ever. Bablet’s distinctive style, enhanced by dark colors, is striking and, at times, evokes the atmosphere of *Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind* or *Howl’s Moving Castle* through its aesthetic.

Certain entirely wordless sequences plunge the reader into silence, leaving ample room for the characters’ emotions and for contemplation.

The storyline is particularly dense and rich. Its pace occasionally allows for a moment to catch one’s breath, but this slowness fully contributes to the sense of immersion and reinforces the feeling of exploring a living (or, in this case, rather dying), ancient, and complex world.

With *Silent Jenny*, Mathieu Bablet has delivered yet another success. It is a deeply human work that once again confirms his status as a major figure in contemporary science fiction comics.

It was beautiful and poignant. Bablet transports you to a world that though post-apocalyptic, focuses on self-determination. The theme of growth, germination and agency is rampant through the book and the way it connects with each one of the characters and storylines is phenomenal.

absolutely phenomenal. made me remember why i love to read again, and i really think i picked this up at the perfect time in my life. just imagine miyazaki's nausicaa meets tillie walden's on a sunbeam- but also something wholly original, hopeful, and devastating all of its own accord. the worldbuilding lovers who can't help contemplating their own and others' mortality are especially gonna eat this one up. can't wait to get my hands on the physical copy, and pick up everything else this artist has written!

*Silent Jenny* is a great example of showing instead of telling. So much is communicated through the art, the atmosphere, and the little details that you end up piecing everything together yourself.

The whole story feels quiet but incredibly intense at the same time. It never has to shout to make an impact. The world is rich and fascinating, and it leaves you wanting to dig deeper into it with every chapter. It feels like there is always something more waiting just beneath the surface.

Most of all, it gives you plenty to think about. It is the kind of comic that makes you look back at certain scenes in a completely different way.

What a beautiful book! I loved the art, the character designs, and the hellscape that was this dead or dying world.
The story was good in a dark, hopeless sort of way, and it's definitely a slow burn, with little to no exposition, which is something I sometimes enjoy. What impressed me most was the effort that went into the world-building: the machines, humanity's attempts to survive against all odds, and even the bureaucracy all helped make the setting feel believable and lived-in.

The quiet post-apocalypse genre dates back at least as far as The Road, yet Silent Jenny has managed not only to do it well, but to blend it into more mainstream forms of post-apocalyptic genre in a way that elevates both. The long, careful, quiet setup with deftly drip-fed worldbuilding in the first chapters gives us the two threads of the story. There is the thread of a woman on the brink of despair going on missions into gorgeous, dangerous landscapes on the thin hope of saving the world, and the thread of vignettes in the life of a close-knit community intensely aware of the fact the world around them is steadily getting worse.

Each of these would make a very good graphic novel on their own. The mircroverse that Jenny travels through is depicted in stunning cavescapes echoing Kazu Kibuishi and Moebius, her quest for bee DNA serving both as nice ecofiction touch and powerful narrative image, and the various lives of the mutants pitted against her fear of becoming one of them weaving a complex vision of human identity. The scenes of the Noon-Seeker’s community are equally effective: life, death, partings, traditions, and little moments like a child removing the helmet he must always wear in order to feel the rain, all weave together masterfully. The saga of the Noon-Seeker’s children is especially well-handled, their mix of wonder and resentment and ultimate finding of a new path stands in stark contrast to the usual children in post-apocalyptic fiction, who are far too often reduced to McGuffins and/or hope symbols existing to un-jade the grownups. In both threads, the almost Rembrandt-esque muddy pallet and deeply emotional and human grotesque character designs of Bablet’s art hammer home the emotions with only occasional slips in clarity.

It is the way these two narrative threads wind together, however, that make Silent Jenny shine. Together, Jenny’s life on the Noon-Seeker and on the missions unite to create an aching portrait of a self-destructive woman isolating herself from the people who love her, impelled by some very good reasons to despair. I normally do not hesitate to spoil, but in this case just let me say that everything that has come before (note where her head is on page 259) lends the choice made between pages 261 and 262 enormous weight.

If this book has a flaw, it is the last few pages, where several things happen in such rapid succession that one wonders if it’s supposed to be a vision rather than something real. The things that happen, good and bad, align perfectly with the story’s core, so I’ll give them a pass.

With Mathieu Bablet, there is always more to the post-apocalyptic story and the world building than just imagining the future. He mixes ecological anxiety with the difficulty of finding faith in our work and our ways of life, the fracture between urban centers and nomadism, the point of humanity on its whole. On the graphical aspect, he made a real masterpiece, his style is instantly recognizable and mesmerizing, with unmatched talent and creativity when it comes to depict landscapes and craft future environments, no matter the scale in the case of Silent Jenny. This is absolutely stunning!

Silent Jenny is a graphic novel that is honestly a masterpiece and timely one at that. The artwork and colour palette is fantastic. The story is brilliant and keeps you hooked and a little too close to home. Honestly I can’t remember enjoying a comic this much in a long time.

Silent Jenny by Mathieu Bablet is a thoughtful and visually stunning graphic novel set in a dystrophic world devastated by climate change and the extinction of pollinating insects. Jenny, a recluse researcher, searches for bee DNA to restore the natural order of the old world, but soon realizes that the past mistakes cannot be undone. This fascinating and emotional journey emphasizes that humanity’s only hope at a better future is to work together. Bablet’s graphic novel highlights the devastation climate change can cause, while also emphasizing collectiveness, cooperation, and innovation, as a path toward a hopeful future. Overall, a 4-star read.