It’s back to school week for a lot of folks out there. It’s the start of a new school year for some, but us over here at Paper Cuts HQ, it is a new week of comics. And three #1 issues to start this year off on the right…
Eclipse #1 (Image / Top Cow)
Imagine a world where being in the sun for even a moment would kill you. There is no trade off where you get to live forever or fly in the night sky. Just a normal human, being forced to live your life underground, except for the ICEMEN who wear a sophisticated suit to help them navigate the new landscape.
World building is always fun and if a number #1 issue is done right, the creators will give you just enough rules to understand, but will also leave you with questions. Zach Kaplan does an excellent job of building the world with his cast of characters and very little text boxes. In a single issue, he delivers a large cast of memorable characters, builds out a world and weaves a tale of mystery and murder.
At first glance, I thought the overall art to be a bit too bright overall and almost exhausting with the constant brightness of it all, but after sitting down and looking it back over, I believe that is what they were very subtlety building. Brightness in the night, brightness underground, and just a constant bombardment of light. Really effective story telling told through color and dialogue.
Ratings: 4 out of 5
The Great Divide #1 (Dynamite)
Infectious disease horror is an oft forgotten form of horror outside the zombie genre. When we look at our real lives with diseases like Ebola and Zika, it terrifies everyone and can cause an immediate state of panic. With basically one text box, Ben Fisher sets up a paradigm in a world where humans can no longer touch one another without immediately causing death due to a disease that nearly wiped out the human race and makes it impossible to reproduce. This book may share some similar tones and themes of “Y: The Last Man,” but that is not a bad thing.
Now do not get me wrong, I am not going to put The Great Divide next to Y: The Last Man, but it was solid story telling with enough world building and plot to keep me interested.
Dynamite as a company has traditionally focused on writers and the art has suffered because of it. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the art provided by Adam Markiewicz was better than lot of other books I reviewed for this column. The style reminded me of Mike Henderson, who is currently working on Paper Cuts’ favorite, Nailbiter.
Ratings: 3.5 out of 5
Glitterbomb #1 (Image)
The solicit promised “terror in the water” and although it loosely delivered, that was not the main focus on this #1. A washed up, aging, down-on-her-luck actress is looking for a miracle and becomes possessed with an uncontrollable “thing” that emerges from the water.
Although I usually like to rate the comics strictly on storytelling and art, but this was a nice bounce back for creator Jim Zub. Zub may be known for his sword and sorcery writing; his work on horror-fantasy mashup of Wayward has been very enjoyable. However, his work over at Marvel left me feeling flat, so I was happy to see him come back to something where he can stretch his creativity.
Ratings: 3 out of 5