REVIEW: ‘My Life Among Humans’ Explores The Complexity Of Life

One quiet night near a small desert community, an unnamed alien lands and prepares to start studying the humans nearby. But while his intention is pure observation, an accidental encounter with one of his subjects sends his mission off the rails. Now, he is struggling to salvage the situation before his boss shows up to terminate his job and his life in My Life Among Humans from Oni-Lion Forge Publishing and creator Jed McGowan.

The first thing of note about this book is how it chooses to deliver its story to the reader. With rare exceptions, the entirety of My Life Among Humans is told through a running internal monologue from the alien observer. As he puzzles his way through finding his subjects for observation, McGowan gives the reader a solid impression of how the book will feel and play out over its nearly 100 pages.

That feeling is one of reserved panic. As the book progresses, the alien finds his mission slipping more and more out of control. While the words McGowan uses to deliver his protagonist’s feelings come across as panicked, the art and lettering do little to reinforce this energy. Due to this, despite the growing escalation of the trouble the alien finds himself in, it never feels like a true crisis mode is reached, which does little to help grab the reader’s attention. If the book managed to bring up the energy of the story through more dynamic art and expressive fonts, it could have come closer to becoming the comedy of errors it is striving to be. Unfortunately, as it is, there are largely only errors here.

What errors, you may ask, does our new alien friend find himself in? His mission is to passively observe humans through micro scouts that implant themselves in our brains. With no capacity to exert any control, these scouts are intended purely to relay sensory and mental information back to him, so he can then send it back to his manager. However, when he accidentally gets spotted by one of his subjects, he discovers that, for some unknown reason, he is capable of exerting control over people infected by the scouts. While this keeps the humans who have discovered him from calling the authorities and running him out of town, it creates new problems for him. He needs data that is untainted by humans discovering his presence. So, he starts trying to find new subjects with the help of his new aids.

These adventures into the lives of his subjects, particularly a young man named Will, prove to be of great trouble for him. While he has observed human interactions for some time, having a natural conversation with people proves to be beyond him. Before long, some of the locals become concerned about odd behaviors that some of their friends have been projecting.

As previously mentioned, the vast majority of this is told directly to the reader from the alien’s point of view. McGowen uses this element to craft an extremely sympathetic character. The alien is only trying to do its job without getting killed for failing. As the situation spirals out of his control, you never once feel like there is any malice out of the character. Just desperation and worry. This allows the alien to continue being likable, even when some of his actions are not great.

This worry is brought through in a well, though muted way, through the art. The art design is something truly unique. The best way I can think of describing it is if you CGI-ed a bunch of Muppets. The design gives My Life Among Humans a mildly comical look that works well overall. Going along with the art is a simple lettering style that effectively relays the story to the reader, though its ambitions stop at that and nothing more.

My Life Among Humans delivers a serviceable story about an alien who gets in over his head while just trying to do his job. While it has some fun moments, it never commits to any moment, character, or theme strongly enough to create any memorable elements.

My Life Among Humans is available now wherever comics are sold.