Review by Ian Keogh

It was a traumatic Moustache Monday for some attendees of Kokomo High School, and Space Boy 6 opens by raking through the ashes of much that occurred during Space Boy 5. Amy herself was affected, but such is her naturally caring nature she’s more concerned that so many of her friends are feeling bad.

You’ll have noticed that with one exception everyone on the Space Boy covers wears glasses. They’re one of multiple small ways Stephen McCranie differentiates the future from a world that’s otherwise comfortingly not too far removed from our own. Interface technology has moved on from phones, tablets and laptops and now it’s the glasses allowing control and interaction. He’s already introduced several enjoyable concepts associated with the glasses, and another arrives here. Set off a drone, control it, and it can duplicate the sensation of flying. It’s a lovely scene with McCranie’s simple art stylishly supplying the full sensation. More playfully McCranie defines the future via passing mention of states, giving them mad combination names like Britalia, Germexico and Vietnamerica. Simple pleasures are also reiterated as Amy experiences snow for the first time.

McCranie drops several surprises, but the biggest for Amy is consideration of her future. The way it was on the planet she grew up on, everyone left school and began working for the mining corporation, so it’s a shock to learn on Earth college is the next step, and good grades are necessary for a good college.

In terms of ongoing plot there’s wonder and upset, but this is a slightly slower story than the volumes with which it’s combined in the second Space Boy Omnibus. There is a shock ending to lead into Space Boy 7, but Amy has made a discovery to inform much of what’s to come.