The comiXology app brings steampunk to life...

Puppet Makers is a romp through a steampunk version of 17th Century France. The tale centers on the mysterious disappearance of the Sun King, Louis XIV, and is told from the view of Father Jean Jacques who investigates the disappearance. This review was a number of firsts for me: I had never read anything by Levitt and Crabapple, and I had never read a comic on an iPhone. To me, both experiences were mixed but worth continuing.

Let’s touch on the iPhone App first. I’ve always been the guy who would enjoy rummaging around comic stores for a series that I felt was different and a bargain. When reviewing Puppet Makers, I was politely asked by Molly if I could purchase it. When the price was under a dollar, even I could not complain. How could I refuse the beautiful Molly Crabapple? More of her later. So I fired up my iPhone and installed the comiXology app, which let me quickly purchase and download issues one and two. (I should say the first issue was free.)

Reading a comic on the iPhone is usually a bit of a chore when it’s a PDF. Using comiXology was much more interactive. Each page can be split into separate panes that flow nicely into each other. However, unless you have an iPad it does get a bit slow going and it can let down the structure of the page layout which the team has gone to great pains to get right. I don’t know if Puppet Makers was specially designed for this format, but if you really want to appreciate the artwork I would say print is still best.

So onto Puppet Makers itself. When I emailed Molly about the review I checked out her website first – mollycrabapple.com. That’s where I found an artist full of surprises. A New Yorker (Queens) writer, artist and entrepreneur, her work is bawdy and burlesque, highly detailed and beautifully colorful. She brings the Victorian vogue alive with a fairground and circus ‘Joie de Vivre’. Not only that, but she has founded the unique anti-art school Dr. Sketchy's: a cross between art classes and a burlesque club. (That may be something worth covering in another feature as there is one in London – if I survived the experience!)

The other talent behind this production is fellow New Yorker John Leavitt, another accomplished illustrator whose work has been published in the The New Yorker, Narrative Magazine and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Using his talent to pen the story in collaboration with Molly, the two have created a very rich world, adding a unique twist by selecting pre-revolutionary France as the backdrop.

However, as a story, I found Puppet Makers to be confusing and lacking a clear direction. It meanders between really good ideas but fails to always connect to the core of the main narrative. I don’t think the comic iPhone App helped with a somewhat myopic presentation of each page. The dialogue was very clear and well-written but too verbose. The copy can compete for attention with the artwork in the rather long speech bubbles needed.

Perhaps this would have been better produced as an illustrated book, rather like a children’s book. What also troubled me was reading the darker story coupled with an illustrative style that was at times more like a children's fairy tale.

While not really adding to the steampunk genre as such, Puppet Makers does remind me of the Dr. Who episode The Girl in the Fireplace, with Madame de Pompadour and the mechanical characters dressed in 18th Century costume. I wonder if that was an inspiration for this?

There is no doubt that Puppet Makers will continue to develop the story and is a joy to look at. If worked up by Crabapple and Leavitt into a full graphic novel, this could be an extraordinary piece of work. If actually given the budget to turn this into a spectacular larger adult fairy tale book, it would be something worth keeping and become a work of art.

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