Written by: Matt Anderson and Patrick Pigeon
Art by: Tim Lattie
Published by: IDW
This is a very weird comic, and not in the sense I think the creative team were going for. I don’t want to start this review out too much on a negative note, as I did find some stuff that I enjoyed in this comic, however it just seems at odds with itself on many occasions, as if it doesn’t know what it wants to be. It’s unfortunate as there seems to be a great deal of potential here, but it’s a first issue that’s hard to recommend.
The comic starts out on a strangely dark note with tonnes of dead bodies lying around in a very dark swamp. This caught me off guard given the cover which lead me to believe this would be a humours romp, but it was at least affective and drew me into the story. After some weird events that I didn’t quite grasp we got into the story I was expecting; three college students on the risk of having their department shut down need to come up with a crazy, attention grabbing experiment to keep their department open. This set-up actually reminded me a lot of 80s movies like Ghostbusters and got me excited as I love those sort of movies, however the book seemed at bit at odds with itself.
The 80s vibe is definitely there (I’m pretty sure a kid is playing an NES in the opening pages) but it’s muddied however by a whole host of references that point to this comic being set in the modern day, from references to kickstarter, the NSA and even the main plot point being about 3D printing. It leads to a very schizophrenic feeling tone, I don’t know if the book wants to be a self-parody of cheesy 80s movie with convenient plot points and a loveable cast of “misfits” (in the books own words) or if it’s just a bit clichéd in terms of writing. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it leads to a very weird reading experience, we have clichés like the cast being made up of “the leader”, “the joker” and “the girl” (Spigs, Peabo and T-ray for future reference) and even have bully protagonists that feel ripped straight from something like Cool Runnings, but then we have some pretty series scenes about cloning and microbiology that seem to undercut the humour and make me wonder what sort of tone the book is going for.
There are also very odd characterisation and pacing choices too; for example, there’s a scene involving Spigs and “the love interest” early in the comic and she seems to be all over him, but later after they’ve gone on a date she seems totally opposed to kissing him, straight after she seems infatuated with him again. It’s just very odd and made me think she was bipolar. The pacing however just seems completely off. There’s a lot of exposition in this issue, which I initially didn’t mind, but it gets ridiculous later on, including what seems like two full pages of biology notes. They don’t serve any purpose to the story and could have easily been done just as a montage (80s style of course to fit the tone) or even just a quick caption to show time has passed, but two full pages of our cast sitting in class over two days just seems like a waste of space. Especially so given that the comic ends just as the plot gets going, leaving it hard to say how good the actual plot will be moving forward. There are some cuts that could’ve easily been made to allow the story more breathing room.
The art is also a mixed bad, I found it pretty enjoyable at first, capturing the 80s vibe I felt the book was going for, however the characters looked a little rough at times and didn’t seem to have very many emotions outside of “smug nonchalance”. At other times however the art really impressed me and looked incredibly atmospheric, two scene in particular, the aforementioned opening and a scene involved in a creepy bell tower and tons of atmosphere and actually generated some suspense, it’s just a shame that they didn’t really go anywhere.
I really don’t like having to complain about this comic so much, as going in I was rather excited and enjoyed a lot of the potential here. It made me chuckle quite a few times and I liked what they were going for, however the book just doesn’t seem to work. It’s too much a mishmash of tones and doesn’t have enough plot to work or intrigue me to read any further. It’s unfortunate as there’s a lot of potential and I think it could work as a self-referential parody of cheesy 80s sci-fi comedies, it just doesn’t seem to be able to pick a direction however and suffers because of it.
