In my opinion, Neotopia is one of the few titles around that can actually qualify as American manga. Its art, paneling, and ambiance all owe more to manga than the western comic tradition, so take that, naysayers.

First the bad: Espinosa is not a great storyteller. He does intelligently riff on some of the more common epic-fantasy-quest genre cliches, but this is mitigated by the characters' generic dialogue and bare-bones development, and the story's choppy pacing.

This is a huge shame, because Espinosa's art is fabulous. As in truly, stunningly beautiful. There were pages were I had to stop reading and just look. His art is one part Fullmetal Alchemist, one part Lear's Scrubious Pip, and one part Where's Waldo, and let me say here again: A-MAZING. The colors are vibrant and the character designs unique (and as a boon to female readers, there are no waify stick-women here). One truly feels, looking at Espinosa's artwork, like one's opened a window into an entirely different, fully-formed world, that these places all actually exist somewhere (and that there's more to them than what one sees on the page—no small feat in any medium). End verdict: the story is not the greatest, but the art is so wonderful that I'm going to be sticking around.