Graphic Novel Review: Soma by Fernando Llor and Carles Dalmau

Posted on August 21, 2025 at 6:17 am by Gene Ambaum

Soma by Fernando Llor (script) and Carles Dalmau (art and colors). Translation by Diego Jourdan Pereira. Oni Press, 2025. 9781637156124. 288pp.

Maya spends almost all of her time drawing comics, but she’s bored with the scripts she’s been drawing. The only source of enjoyment she has is smoking and occasionally meeting friends for coffee; she has time for little else. And then something crashes through her window — it looks kinda like a one-eyed cat head, and it has tentatcles that allow it to communicate mind-to-mind with Maya. After a while she finally understands what it has been trying to tell her, that an alien civilization is invading Earth and that it needs Maya’s help to stop it.

This book offers a violent invasion that is, in many moments, quite kawaii. Dalmau’s art reminds me of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim in the best way, though with far more blood (which is colored, like the rest of the book, perfectly). Weird note: I love the way Dalmau draws pigeons with little scarves.

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