FML #1 fittingly comes out today

This week’s main review is FML #1, an empathetic and understanding story of what youth faces today. Plus, the Wednesday Comics Team has its usual rundown of the new #1s, finales and other notable issues from non-Big 2 publishers, all of which you can find below … enjoy!

FML #1

Writer: Kelly Sue DeConnick
Artist: David Lopez
Colorist: Cris Peter
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

Review by Jared Bird

Industry legend Kelly Sue DeConnick (Captain Marvel, Pretty Deadly) once again teams up with David Lopez (All New Wolverine) in this brand eight issue series for Dark Horse Comics.  That is in and of itself a killer pitch for a comic, but it gets even better than that. Focused on a group of high school kids, growing up in a strange and yet deeply normal world, this series has been one of the biggest surprises of the year for me. With the talent involved, I knew it would be good, but I did not expect how timely it would feel to the youth of today. 

Following teenagers Savage Slaughter, Glory Holgate, Riley Maloney and Lydia, as well as Riley’s mother Patty and sister Lil, FML is at its core a coming of age story. It’s unlike other coming of age stories you might have seen before, partially because of its incredibly competent worldbuilding. The setting of the story is ever so slightly surreal, fantastical and unique, and it’s conveyed both subtly and obviously depending on what it needs to be for the story to work. This gives the book a feeling of ‘anything goes’, which makes it all the more an exciting read.  You’re never quite sure what the next page is going to entail. 

DeConnick is a legend in the industry, so it should come to absolutely no surprise that her writing here is nothing less than stellar. Her sense for dialogue is fantastic, and all throughout the issue the dialogue was incredibly effective in conveying plot and story, funny, and easy to read. Her knack for writing interesting, complicated characters continues here as our main cast all feel individual and unique, with their own quirks and their own flaws. I found Lydia to be a particularly hilarious standout – we all know a Lydia, or have been a Lydia.

Lopez’s energetic artwork is a highlight of the book. He balances style and tone so well, and creates incredibly funny visual gags out of breaking the book’s semi-consistent artstyle. It compliments DeConnick’s script incredibly well, and the two are in perfect sync with each other every time the book changes style or changes tone. It makes for a great reading experience. Cris Peter and Clayton Cowles also do great jobs on the coloring and lettering work, respectively.

Overall, across 30 pages FML makes a strong first impression. It’s laugh out loud funny, full of heart, and seems to be approaching youth with genuine empathy and understanding. I’m certain it will be a hit with the readers who connect with it like I did, and it features fantastic work from DeConnick and Lopez. I think it’s making a genuine attempt to connect with and understand the youth of today, in a wonderful way that isn’t patronizing or judgmental. This book is going to be important for a lot of people, and it’s worth the read and then some.

The Fade #1

Writer: Aabria Iyengar
Art: Mari Costa
Colors: Angel De Santiago
Letters: Jim Campbell
Publisher: BOOM! Studios/BOOM! Box Imprint

Review by Clyde Hall

If you recall a time in your life when escapism felt not only desirable but necessary for your mental and emotional wellbeing, or if you’re experiencing that feeling right now, don’t worry. Whatever generation you belong to and whether the draw of novels, comic books, tabletop roleplay games, MUSHing/MUDDing, or video games fed your soul and helped you cope, you’re not alone. And you find affirmation this week in the excellent BOOM! Studios’ release of The Fade #1. 

It’s part of the BOOM! Box YA imprint and writer Aabria Iyengar ably infuses her experience as a tabletop gamer and GM into the story of Jeannie Dub. Once a standout high school student gifted with creative storytelling potential, she’s now a college freshman and feeling all the ways her life’s changed in a brief span. She’s off-balance, uncertain, and anxious over everyday challenges as adulting looms large on the horizon. 

It’s an atmosphere conducive for escapism and creative expression. Losing yourself in a story not your own as a break from what stresses you, especially when it’s a difficult hero’s journey, can be cathartic. And a viral internet trend called The Fade beckons to our protagonist, with her MishMosh feeds blowing up about ways to easily slip into Fade mode using your dream state. 

Before she can say, “Mirror, mirror” a fantasy realm of Fae adventure opens up to her. But as in all forms of escapism, how will it impact the other world, the family and friendships on the other side of the reflection? Will it sustain, will it empower, or will its whispered promises of a life path more exciting lead her further astray in balancing the real world against the fantastical one? Which one is even which?  

Throughout this first installment, Iyengar brings Jeannie’s struggles into a focus sharp enough it cuts anyone who’s gone through a phase like hers. One where all these emotions regarding social anxieties and establishing foundations for the more mature version of yourself can be waking nightmares, rising dreads, and immersion into magical waters the only prevention against drowning. Like us, Jeannie realizes the dangers of pruning in those fantasy flows to the detriment of responsibilities, but the Fade may be a siren song she can’t resist.

The writing presents the opening scenes as relatable and honest. The art maintains that pace with a very grounded everyday, and a perfectly matching realism across the Fade dimension, thanks to the work of Mari Costa and Angel De Santiago on art and color art respectively. There might have been temptation to make the ‘real world’ bland and the fantasy realm aesthetically overpowering. Making them compatible despite the magic in one, modern tech in the other, serves the theme better and the creative team models it with a powerful, defining style. This approach poses the question again of which world is ‘real’? Which ‘character’ we truly are, the one we spend waking hours being or the one we bring out when our imagination’s free to breathe?

The book may be aimed at younger readers, but its excellent handling of these concepts makes  The Fade #1 a must-read for those who are, or ever have been, young at heart. Because we understand the struggle navigating both existences is real.

Wednesday Comics Reviews

• Exit City #1 (Mad Cave Studios): It gets increasingly difficult to imagine dystopia as anything far off from our present reality, so when a hyper-capitalist state secedes from the U.S. and is allowed to operate as a territory, I just thought “makes sense.” The cool thing is how that horrific idea is presented by writer Mark London; cities interconnected and floating on man-made structures in the ocean. It’s a cyberpunk future, full of tech and unethical experimentation to further that.

  What’s a libertarian paradise without police? We meet two cops and are quickly introduced to their dynamic, one dirty, the other a more by-the-book type. They’re paired and assigned a grizzly homicide that they’ll have to navigate together while navigating each other. This first issue sets up the pieces and players, all creating a sense of intrigue throughout. 

  The art of Karl Mostert feels reminiscent of Frank Quitely and the clean line work feels right at home in the polish of a cyberpunk future that is easily shattered by the dirt and blood underneath the surface that spills out. To that point there’s an excellent closing sequence just building another layer into this investigation and more intrigue about the aforementioned experimentation. David Baron’s colors and light bathe the images in light and warmth and the letters of Dave Sharpe tie everything together nicely, especially the talking vials in Detective McCormick’s jacket and how they’re handled. This is a solid first issue that does a lot with the ideas the team sets up and sets up even more as the book closes. —Khalid Johnson

• Hour of the Wolf #1 (Mad Cave Studios): In Hour of the Wolf #1 from Mad Cave, writer Mark London crafts a creepy story and a solid debut comic book issue that sets up the concept, mysteries, and tone in a tight 20 pages. This has a classic horror comic vibe where it splits between a world that feels just slightly off to one full of mythical horror. The verisimilitude of the empty home and marital strife is a great portal into the unsettling. There’s a string of superhero narrative that undergirds this with a mysterious antihero investigating the evil machinations. The star for me though was Danilo Beyruth’s cartooning, which plays with creative layouts and a great ability to pace the reveals and scares. The colors by Fabi Marques are superb and rich and full of eerie greens and yellow. I’m not a huge horror fan but this does enough to make me curious to read more. —Tim Rooney

The Prog Report

• 2000AD 2407 (Rebellion Publishing): I will be blunt — getting lost in this issue Wednesday morning was nice, you know, on account of things. It launches a new Dread story with an action-packed first chapter by Mike Carroll, Ben Willsher, and Annie Parkhouse. That was well and good, but the highlight for me was Azimuth – The Fabled Basilisk Part Two, a dimension-hopping tale of rogue AI that co-stars Judge Anderson. It’s written by Dan Abnett, with art by Tazio Bettin, colors by Matt Soffe, and letters by Jim Campbell. And the art in this second part is fantastical and absurd, right from the big establishing panel at the top of its first page. This is a good, dense sort of hyper-visual sci-fi, and a wonderful escape today that distracts in equal parts with fantasy and complexity. It really hit the spot. As always, you can nab a digital copy of this week’s Prog here. —Zack Quaintance

Read more entries in the weekly Wednesday Comics reviews series!