This graphic novel was hilarious and well-drawn, definitely worth the money and the hype, and I hope will be successful!

I honestly did not like this title. I didn't like the art style and the amount of bullying inside of it. I'm sure that people who got bullied because they were nerds can relate to the power fantasy of becoming a successful businessman and then seeing your bully never grow up is an interesting topic. Anyways, cannot recommend.

This is one of those graphic novels that I have a hard time explaining why I liked it so much. I really just want to put it in everyone's hands and say "See for yourself!" The story was super fun and the art was awesome.

I really enjoyed this story. I like the back to the future vibes that I got and I am interested to see where the story goes from here. I did however think the leader of the bully friend group was laid on a little thick as far as being so anti nerd for no reason and I really disliked him. I don't know if there is going to be another volume but if I can find it I would pick it up.

Essentially Ogre and a couple of other football players from <i>Revenge of the Nerds</i> are cryogenically frozen in the 80's, waking up in our current nerd culture. It's somewhat entertaining, but Chad's (The Ogre character) schtick gets old really fast. I feel like the book didn't spend enough time on having these aggro 80's archetypes thrust into today's society where nerds rule the world.

Short, cool graphic novel of 80s kids, superheroes, nerds, and on. It was fun to read, the future and nerdy things were captivating. The illustrations were good, overall an agreeable read.

Not gonna lie, I really liked this book when reading it all at once in comparison to reading the individual issue reviews. The opening chapters really show a really good critique of how things have changed from the 80s. But to be honest, I liked the minis at the end of each chapter a little better, the one with Drew is my favorite. The parts with Alvin definitely show a socially outcast teenager who tries his hardest; unfortunately the parts that reveal that he's a sociopath kind of do the messages of social progress a disservice. Drew is easily my favorite character of the trio; he's smart, doesn't want to be defined by what he looks like or by his race, but wants to be represented too. He and Steve actually have the opportunity of their lives, I just wish that could be explored more than just the off-panel discoveries. Chad meanwhile isn't that great a look into. I'm betting the makers didn't really want him to be that sympathetic and purposefully made him undesirable so they have an excuse to get rid of him. His backstory's not that compelling either, in fact it just makes him look like a stereotype. Yet that revelation near the end of his intentions at the climax make him out to be this tragic hero. The there's Jenny, she makes a whole lot of progress in the main story, although her backstory is a little divisive.

It's not a terrible read, but I feel like more could've been done.

Three eighties jocks get put in suspended animation and wake up in a nightmare future where the geeks have conquered the world. Which is to say, here and now. It's an excellent premise, recalling the best bits of 21 Jump Street, like where Channing Tatum, having insisted Jonah Hill one-shoulder it, is shocked to see the kids with their backpacks on both shoulders, and being sensitive, and so forth. Wisely, though, it realises that there's limited mileage in having Chad (as the worst of the gang is inevitably called) try to fight an entire con's worth of cosplayers, so does broaden the net a little; there's one very nicely done moment where the two white jocks are startled at how militarised 21st century American policing has got, and the black kid is markedly less so. Important, too, is that the geek they used to bully – who, inevitably, has since become a wealthy CEO – is no wish-fulfillment figure; he was genuinely a bit of a creep back when, and nowadays is basically a combination of Steve Jobs and Peter Thiel. Back-up strips add more nuance to the characters, arguably too much in Chad's case; one thing eighties media perhaps understood better than now is that some people are just terrible.

(Netgalley ARC)

Planet of the Nerds by Paul Constant, 152 pages. GRAPHIC NOVEL, LGBTQIA+
Ahoy Comics, 2019. $18.
Language: R (81 swears, 51 “f”); Mature Content: R; Violence: PG13
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - NO
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
Chad is out to get the nerd Alvin, though Drew and Steve don’t know why Chad can’t just leave Alvin alone. When they stumble upon the nerd’s project, no one expects that they would wake up thirty years later unscathed. Unsure how to navigate the world’s changes, Chad, Drew, and Steve have to rely on someone familiar: the nerd-turned-CEO Alvin.
While seeing the changes made over the last thirty years in a fresh light was fun, that was the only thing I liked about this book. Chad was extremely frustrating, and I didn’t like the language and mature content that was not at all necessary. The mature content rating is for masturbation and mentions of oral sex.
Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

In the “Planet of the Nerds,” there are three jocks in high school who like to pick on another teen who doesn’t fight back. There is a jock who just can’t stand this nerd so he constantly follows him around school. One day the jock get his two pals to go with him as he follows the nerd. The nerd has built a machine that freezes people. The jocks have an accident with destroying the nerd’s machine. The nerd runs out leading the thre jocks to be frozen several years. When the boys come to, they don’t realize that they had gone into the future. When they leave the former nerd’s shack, they don’t recognize anything. Eventually, they do focus on what there is and isn’t. There are no pay phones or phone books! What will they do to survive in the future? Will they be able to hook up with their parents, and former friends?

This was a humorous and funny read. The story is easily read and followed. The. Illustrations are done exceptionally well. I thought the story had a good theme of what it was like to be bullied in school and how it affects those who are the victims.

Funny, irreverent and Back-to-the-Futurish with a disturbing edge. A great start to a new series, though.

In Planet of the Nerds we meet a group of jocks (Chad, Steve, and Drew) from the 80s. Chad has a huge problem with a nerd named Alvin. So much so, he follows him after school convinced he is up to something. When they find Alvin’s secret laboratory there is an accident and the three jocks are frozen. Thirty years later they are thawed when the site was being cleared to build a Chipotle, but this isn’t the world they remember and they are not adjusting well.

The story is a lot of fun but doesn’t shy away from the negative aspects of the 80s. As a child of the 80s, I appreciated the references to payphones and the lack of chip choices. I also love that it wasn’t romanticized. So many times you only see the neon colors and big hair that the 80s was so famous for. Planet of the Nerds also includes the subtle racism, homophobia, and ableism that was so prevalent also. Drew is encouraged to attend good “football” colleges instead of the Ivy League he wants to attend because he is black. The slang and insults can be a little jarring to us today, but there is a good balance between being historically authentic and reminding us that we have come so far in understanding that words have power and do hurt. Those old insults get the boys into trouble more than once.

My favorite thing about the art is the background details. In one panel there is a poster of a van with a warning. Someone is using candy to abduct children and I could not stop laughing because I remember sitting through those classes in elementary school warning us that there was a stranger in a van around every corner with a puppy or candy, just waiting to get us. There is also a very powerful scene with Drew when he sees Miles Morales for the first time. The dialogue says, “You guys. It’s the coolest Spider-Man’s black now.” The look on his face shows all of the excitement of someone seeing themselves in a comic for the first time.

I added Planet of the Nerds to my pull list and read it every month. I will definitely be purchasing the trade when it comes out October 29th. It is a fun look back on the 80s and how far we have come. It captures the rise of nerd culture so well and has wonderful one liners that remind us that even though we have come so far, we still have a ways to go. All of this is in a fun silly story about being out of place in a different time.

I was not a fan of the style of artwork in this comic. I also thought while the idea was interesting the execution was not what I was wanting. There seemed to be no lesson learned by the 'jocks' or the 'nerd'. This wasn't a fun time travel tale, and it moved too quickly to really let the reader see the 'jocks' adjusting to the future.

This proved to be quite a good read, and a fun, quick, light comic. Three regular teens – well, two regular ones and an off-the-scales violent tw*t – stumble on their school's nerd, who manages to escape the gases from a mystery machine he's created, while they don't – and only wake up in 2019, three decades later. They eventually realise the world is much changed, and seek out the dweeb as their only way out. It's generally a breeze, but I preferred the actual story to the end-of-the-monthly asides – one clumsily brings in a bit of recent history for no reason whatsoever, and another is quite childish in its violence-begets-violence characterisation. Elsewhere, though, the script is fine – wittily bringing in culture references, adding broad comedy to the even broader characters, and making for a good romp. Certainly recommended, and a strong four stars.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Chad, Steve and Drew, three high school jocks, are inadvertently frozen in 1988 by a disastrous cryogenics experiment, only to be revived in 2019, a nerd-ruled future.

In a time when the 1980s nostalgia has engulfed the world, Planet of the Nerds perfectly hits its mark, reminding of a past era with humour and nevertheless staying contemporary.
The graphic novel is as an easy, fun read with its fast-paced plot, offering interesting little twists, and its realistic and relatable characters. Drew, in particular, shines over them all as a smart and proactive young man, despite society.

Decidedly recommended: Planet of the Nerds can entertain young and old alike in its unique way.

I had fun reading this graphical novel even thought some of the characters were not likable enough and not everyone may like left-wing movement mentioned in the story :) It also feels like author wanted to mix as many different or diverse characters as he could :D

I appreciate having had an opportunity to read this book in ARC form. The appeal of this particular book was not evident to me, and if I cannot file a generally positive review I prefer to simply advise the publisher to that effect and file no review at all.