- Starside: volume 1
- Story & Script
- Dylan Klein
- Lane Brettschneider
- Story, Art, & Lettering
- Website: www.starsidecomic.com
- Coming to Kickstarter October 7th, 2025
After a brutal invasion rips Jack away from his ordinary life on Earth, he’s left stranded and alone on a distant alien moon. In his desperate search for a way back home, Jack finds confidence and family in a band of misfits and learns that humans are much more powerful than we ever imagined.
Starside: Volume One is a 216-page, full color graphic novel, appropriate for teens and above.
A while back, I put together a review for issue three of a rollercoaster sci fi series called Starside. A much shorter while ago, the creators for the series hit me up with the continuing adventures, soon to be available on Kickstarter in a trade paperback collecting issues 1-7. Remembering the slick combination of action and smoothly written dialogue set against an intergalactic backdrop of conquest and rebellion, I dipped back into the story.
It’s all pretty much how I remembered, following high schooler Jack after he’s abducted from Earth, finds some short-lived allies, and escapes captivity to find himself evading recapture on an alien world (okay, take a breath). Along the way there are thrilling heroics, daring escapes, deepening mysteries, and more escapes. Classic elements reminiscent of Star Wars and The Last Starfighter come together to entertain readers ages teen and up.
The story may be familiar, but not in a tired “oh great, this again” kind of way. Jack is along for the ride so far, almost more of a POV character than a main as he’s bounced from frying pan to frying pan. There’s never really a chance for him to put his collection of puzzle pieces together before the next crisis picks him up and sweeps him along.
And those pieces are there, writers Lane Brettschneider and Dylan Klein are making sure of that. It’s their sharp writing that keeps Starside from falling too deep into tropes. The dialogue is great, giving everyone a unique voice using dialects and accents you can almost hear on the page. Lane and Dylan also do good work balancing “tell” with “show”, as almost nothing is just laid out in needless exposition, but discovered by the reader- in many cases at the same time as the characters- through conversation and events.
Jordan Chao’s art has a kinetic feel to it. The panels aren’t particularly clean or crisp but as things are happening, I had a great sense of running along with the action. Character designs make it easy to tell one individual from another, even before we left Earth, and I wonder how much fun Jordan had giving some of the crazier aliens their looks. Chao also did a really good job imparting a sense of dynamic action as chase scenes flew across the page.
As a collaborative team, I give full props to this group of creators. All are credited with the story, and it’s a great story so far, as issues 1-7 have shown. Anyone interested in fast-paced action on the intergalactic stage, that still manages to be character-driven, hop over to the Kickstarter launch page, or sign for updates through the Starside website.
Final Score: 11/13
