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Clock Striker

Author: Issaka Galadima/ GLADISKSTUDIO (artist), and Frederick L. Jones (writer)

Volumes: 1 (ongoing)

Publisher: Saturday AM [click HERE for Amazon purchase page]

Clock Striker fills me with a sense of excitement and wonder about where things are going. I'm a whole lot more invested in the story than I thought I’d be after just 14 chapters, and as a result it made it near enough halfway into the top 31 series list. I actually think that Issaka Galadima and Frederick L. Jones’ Clock Striker could even climb much higher depending on where the story goes from here!

The main character Cast, has a disability that she needs to work around. Stuck in a poor town with an education system determined to force her down the Home Ec route, she craves to put her intelligence and creativity to much better use. Cast dreams of being a Smith!

Even when she finally gets her iconic gauntlet of a prosthetic hand, the story makes sure to focus on application and problem solving in ways that don’t feel like they erase that disability’s presence and importance in the narrative.

With the goal of becoming a Smith, and a female Smith at that, a chance encounter with her soon to be mentor Philomena Clock kicks her journey off for real. Like a sort of cross between early Dragonball and Fullmetal alchemist, the story embraces the action adventure format in ways where you could be fooled that this author has done this sort of thing a million times before and really refined the craft.

The series is only 1 volume in at the time of writing so it’s hard to say much more than that, but I constantly and eagerly await further instalments, as I’m wholeheartedly invested in this series already.