I don’t think I will be sticking with Picard’s Academy. A story about how young Jean-Luc Picard was a dick, and needed to learn how to make friends doesn’t hold much appeal. We know from “The Samaritan Snare” and “Tapestry” that during his Academy days Picard was a bit of a rover and rabble rouser, so seeing him here as a guy obsessed with getting top marks and being alone doesn’t really fit. Granted, he’s only second year here, but regardless.
Some aspects of the story are the writer, Sam Maggs, trying too hard to be cute, like Picard asking Boothby if he has coffee instead before settling for tea, and some choices are just bizarre. A couple pages in, a caption box describes a characters as “Always drinks his respecting-women juice.” Which is just a wild thing to put in a Trek comic for one, but also not relevant to the scene they’re in, and we don’t see the character again for the rest of the issue.
I also hate the art choices. For some reason the artist decided a Bolian character – the respecting-women juice drinker – should have a fin on his face and head as opposed to the bifurcation line that we see Bolians typically have. There’s a Betazoid that appears to have a number of extra nostrils like an Ilari from the VOY episode, “Warlord”, and if the cover is any indication they glow. In a holodeck simulation, there are a number of ENT era vessels, some of which have their nacelles connected at what appears to be 45° angles to the ships’ centreline.