Review by Frank Plowright

Dudley Datsun wants to be an inventor and has the talent, the ideas and an encouraging teacher, but things don’t always go right for him. Scott Snyder, though, ensures he’s sympathetic from the start, which guarantees we’re rooting for him to come through what’s an increasingly wild ride.

A positive story stresses the importance of inventors, people who think beyond the present to what could be the future, and Snyder populates the scenes with little known facts about historical inventors, such as their pets, and Thomas Edison’s son’s efforts to reduce the family reputation.

Starting with a school science fair show, Snyder expands fifteen year old Dudley’s world to encompass a talking dog, two secret societies from the times of Ancient Greece and an upending of the certainties Dudley takes for granted. Much of what follows is dependent on artist Jamal Igle’s ability to create the amazement, and that he does. There’s an absolute clarity to the art, which is supplied in an attractive clear style ensuring a visual demarcation between the sympathetic and the villainous, and Igle really comes through when delivering the fantastic. He also comes up with a clever recurring motif indicating the ideological divide that Dudley steps into.

Delve too deeply, and that divide lacks a strong foundation, but the emotional division resonates. Because Snyder keeps the pace accelerated, the ideas coming, and the adventure rousing there’s little time to consider those foundations. Dudley’s experiences slot into both the coming of age and fall and rise arcs of narrative drama, and he never loses his appeal, finding an inner strength, adaptability and ultimately a purpose affecting the entire world. It’s a roller-coasting treat.