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Grayhaven
Magazine, January 21, 2002
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If you were to cross Golden Age sci-fi pulp comics with Jeff Smith's Bone, you might get something like Zed. He's a cute little alien who just happens to have made a little world-shattering boo-boo. From the ads on the back cover for other works by Gagné, my impression is that he's got quite a range of art styles, and he's chosen a good one here, very open and inviting, and I'd have to say it's even cute, though this is a rare time I use that as a compliment. The various aliens, spacecraft and landscape are all imaginatively rendered, and Gagne' is very adept with graytones, and there's a dark enough line to really ground the art. The pace is breakneck, but the big events are relayed in an offhand, lighthearted fashion, occasionally too much so for me. To compare the book to Bone may be unfair in a number of ways, but while I enjoyed Zed quite a bit for both its imagination and the very slick package (lovely, eye-grabbing covers!), I think some quieter moments to really make us care about Zed, and some more serious, dramatic scenes, would make it all a bit more memorable. It's worth checking out, though.
--Christopher Allen, Grayhaven Magazine