Child labor laws, but with a dash of magic. [Dreams Factory by Jerome Hamon, Suheb Zako]

London, 1892. Like most children in the working-class town where she lives, Indira works the coal mines every day without protest. But when her little brother Eliott disappears, nothing matters anymore... She embarks on a desperate quest to find him and discovers that he is not the only child to have mysteriously disappeared.

All clues seem to point to the same person: Cathleen Sachs, the wealthy owner of the coal mines. But why would she kidnap these children? From the acclaimed writer of NILS: THE TREE OF LIFE and animation designer SUHEB ZAKO (Netflix's "ARCANE"), this adventurous tale of magic and mystery leaps off the page like an animated feature in print.

Illustrated by Suheb Zaho, Jerome Hamon's Dreams Factory is a cyberpunk-esque fairy tale about the perils of being a child in an adult's industrial world. Indira and her brother Eliott struggle day-to-day in their working class, child labor filled lives. An inevitability with labor, especially the child kind, fatigue and general malaise keeps Indira from work one day. Knowing they are living in squalor contingent upon her efforts, despite seemingly living with an unnamed, never pictured adult, albeit one who apparently super detached from them, Eliott takes it upon himself to sub in for his sister at the local coal mine she works in. Turned away simply for not hitting a height requirement, Eliott joins the ranks of many other missing children when he accepts a mysterious offer from the owner of the coal mine. What follows is a whirlwind of vague fantasy. While some characters die, others find themselves armed with new knowledge, making informed choices and stuck in the most depressing new stations.   

Comprising two volumes, the book made a time leap that left me wanting more. And the problem is I feel like that more that I imagine I would get, that more seems like it would be innately better than the story I got here. I imagine whatever continuation might come next would have to dig into the roots of the "magic" at the heart of the story. And I say "magic," because is it maybe just advanced alien technology? I really don't know. In terms of why things had to happen certain ways, my questions were left largely unanswered. And even though the panel to panel transition felt a bit weird at times, the artwork was lovely. I'm giving this 3 stars and I'm wanting more. 

Dreams Factory (ISBN:9781951719524) is due for publication September 13, 2022.