Junkwraithby Ellinor Richey is a new indie comic that is a complete story, so readers don’t have to worry about picking up continued issues. It stars a young girl named Flo who is struggling with skating. However, she has no confidence in herself, so she ditches the skates and runs home.
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Along the way, her Juju, Frank, who is a sentient Alexa, convinces her to go back to the trash and retrieve her skates. It’s too late. The skates are gone, and she soon discovers that it has taken on the form of a Junkwraith. Cursed, she must now venture off into the Wasteland to find a cure. There are some lingering questions left by the end. So, let’s go through them all in this discussion ofJunkwraith.
Spoiler warning!
6What Exactly Is A Juju?
Frank is Flo’s traveling companion and also a Juju. It seems like anew piece of technologythat puts a spin on AI in cellphones. Frank can walk on its own. It can talk and think independently, record data in text and video form, and even play music.
It is the Alexa of the future but is there something more to Frank and the other Jujus? Later in the comic, Agent Duchamp hits a Jujuwith a sword. This causes it to fall and crack its lower shell which releases the Juju spirit. That’s what it looks like anyway as the blue phantom wisps away. From this scene, readers could infer that Jujus are controlled Junkwraiths that are contained within a shell.That’s only a theory though.
5The State Of The World
Lum is the only city shown inJunkwraith. It is Flo’s home along with everyone else’s in the comic save for the Wasteland pirates. How big is this city compared to the Wasteland? Also, how big is the Wasteland compared to the rest of the world?
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Surely there must be other cities out there worth exploring. It’s hard to imagine a planet, even if it isn’t Earth, being reduced to one city and a giant vastness of wastes This would make for afun open-world gamesince there is seemingly a lot out there to explore. It’s a shame thatJunkwraithdidn’t expand on its world more.
4Duchamp And Junkwraiths
Agent Duchamp is set up to be the villain of the comic early on. While he does show some antagonistic moves, nothing ever comes from them. The worst thing he does is destroy a Juju. He kidnaps Flo too but fails miserably at it. Just what exactly was his goal?
Duchamp mentions wishing to keep the Wasteland scary so that no one ventures outside Lum. It seems like he is doing the right thing, but there must be something more to it. Junkwraiths almost feel like a myth in the city of Lum. It’s like Duchamp is possessed, trying to prove he isn’t a crackpot tohis fellow detectives. Since he is barely in the story, all of these ideas can only be inferred.
3Flo’s Aversion To Skating And Her Parents
Not much is known about Flo’s parents inJunkwraith. Flo seems bitter towards them for some reason. It seems like she comes from money, so it could be the idea that they are never there for her and yet constantly push her to do her very best. Flo’s mom is shown in onetime travel-like flashback pagebut that’s it.
Also, what’s so important about skating?
It seems like a convenient plot device. It’s a way to get a Junkwraith to appear, but that is about it. There are moments when the ice skating comes back into view. However, by the end, Flo’s evasion of skating will be as foreign to readers as it was from page one. The overall way to explain this is that Flo isn’t given enough love from her parents. This makes her feel unappreciated by the rest of the world too. That may be why she has no skating confidence or enough guts to tell Zoeher true feelings.
2Octavia Splitting Up From Horatio
This is partlyan easy puzzleto solve. When Flo goes to the library early on inJunkwraith, she meets Octavia. This absent-minded librarian tells Flo of a way to cure her curse. She mentions that she was cursed too and that her friends helped her through it all. She remarks wondering if they are still in the Wasteland.
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This is basic foreshadowing readers could probably see from miles away. The pirates Flo encounters are Octavia’s trio of friends. Captain Horatio seems to be Octavia’s husband. It’s never said why the four of them split apart. It could be inferred that the memory curse, Oblivia, kept them apart, but that is only a guess. The way the comic goes, it seems like Octavia was cured and then left her friends to rot. That’s a dark way to look at, but again that’s only one interpretation.
1The Passage Of Time
The flow of time isn’t easy to follow in the comic. At first, it seems like Flo is only gone for a few days before she makes it to Octavia’s cave. After that, she loses Frank, and then time goes out the window. The rest of the story could also take place within days or longer.
Zoe and Agent Duchamp leave Lum to search for Flo. Their journey seems to go by quicker than Flo’s original trek. That might be because Duchamp has a hoverboard of some sort. It could be deduced that at the most, a week or two goes by. What about the end though? How long did it take to get to the epilogue ofJunkwraith? While things end, there is plenty of open room for a sequel comic.
Junkwraithby Ellinor Richey can be purchased starting from Jun 04, 2025.
