*** Please note this issue is not released until February 4th 2015***
Written by: Grant Morrison
Art by: Chris Burnham
Publisher: Image
The God of Cosmic Enlightenment in comics takes on Cosmic Horror. Prepare yourselves.
Nameless #1 is one of the most immediately captivating debut books from Image in a while. From a visual perspective, artist Chris Burnham (with great help from colorist Nathan Fairbairn) deliver a terrifying vista of devastating implication without losing any of the color, personality, or vibrancy of this new world that he’s crafted with Grant Morrison. A common trope to fall in with tackling the horror genre involves making the grittiest and darkest environment one can imagine and this can involve sacrificing all life from the pages and atmosphere. Nameless forgoes all of that. This pages pop with disgusting vivaciousness and continue to remain immediately captivating from the first to last page. Burnham is an artist who gets many unfair comparisons to being a “lesser” Frank Quitely due to their similar styles and collaborations with Morrison. Nameless crushes any of those absurd ascertains for Burnham’s style portrays the grime, dirtiness, pure sci-fi ugly present in Morrison’s script and there’s not a better artist suited for it.
Make no mistake, dear readers, this is a cosmic horror comic. This book, while still remaining it’s own completely unique thing, is a lot like a late night viewing of Return of the Jedi and the acid kicks in as soon as The Sarlaac Pit eviscerates Boba Fetts body, if you catch my drift. While Morrison’s writing has never appealed to any sort of spoon-feeding or hand-holding towards his readers (which alienates some), Nameless never becomes frustrating because of this. In fact, it’s better for this sort of “throw you right into the s***” approach. By just starting his story in the way he views most effective (as opposed to the readers might feel), Morrison promises millions of possibilities present in this universe and all of the horrors that might come along with without sacrificing any pages for wasted exposition. Nameless is not hard to follow, it simply plays it’s cards close to the chest while simultaneously dropping all of them to deliver a quick jab to the gut when you weren’t looking. It relishes in the advent of surprise in every page, no matter how disgusting.
This is a book that fights hard for your money. Even though Morrison and Burnham are superstars in their own right and in a myriad of others, they are still hungry. Nameless is a series that deserves all of the dollars you spent on it. For our sakes (and the sake of the cosmos), drop whatever overpriced $5.00 comic from the biggest publishers you were going to pick the week this is released and buy this instead. I promise you it is completely worth it. Morrison and Burnham do as well.
