VS Comics is a monthly, digital comic from Mike Garley (Dead Roots, Collider) and James Moran (Doctor Who, Severance) and an impressive line of guest contributors and assistance.
The creator owned project uses a format that has Moran and Garley contribute ten-page stories each month and multiple guest slots. In issue one we bring in guests like Mike Stock, Paul Alexander, Nadine Ashworth, Nich Angell, Luke Butland, Rebecca Morse, Martin Simmonds, Nicolas Vial and Patrick Walsh. Yes. It feels like you’re getting an awful lot for just a couple of quid.
I ported this PDF to the Kindle folder in the SD card of my Nexus 7. It was perfectly possible to read the comic in landscape that way or in portrait without needing to zoom in read the speech (with the exception of Eponymous). The plan allows for VS Comics to be available to a hefty range of devices later on including the iPhone, iPad, Kindle Fire, Nook, Kobo and Android. If you’re progressive enough to be reading indie, creator owned, digital comics then you’re cool and capable enough not to have any trouble with the formatting.
At a glance it looked like there was six comics in issue one and not the usual two from Garley and Moran and two from guests. Actually, there’s one issue of Day and Night, one of Swan Song, two of Eponymous and two of Tabby & Trout. Bonus content for the first issue.
Day and Night, written by James Moran, is a vampire thriller fantastically illustrated by Walsh and coloured by Ashworth. The scene is set beautifully when some office workers stumble into a scene they shouldn’t and attract unwanted interest. In just a few pages you’ll relate to some of the characters and begin to worry about the extent of the vampire’s influence in the city. Good. This is how it should be.
Swan Song is already shaping up to be an unusual story from Paul Alexander, drawn by Morse and coloured by Vial. We meet a robot nurse who seems mildly curious about her human patient and humanity. Its only in the last few panels that we discover there might be something else going on. It’s too early to tell how this will shape up… but I’m curious.
Eponymous (we get issue #0 Prelude and issue #1 Leap of Faith) is written by Mike Garley with the art from Simmonds. This looks like the high impact thriller that’ll draw most of VS’ regular readers back for the next issue. Simmonds and Garley seem to be a good match, with art and story style working amazingly well together to create an almost cinematic tempo to the action. I get a Splinter Cell vibe from this one but wonder what will happen to the pace if and when the octane levels drop.
Lastly there’s the surprising Tabby and Trout. Trout’s some big head alien, pig, fish, space pilot, smugger, relaxed dude. Tabby is a spunky human who likes to steal spaceships in her underwear. I knew VS Comics would be multi-genre so I don’t know why I was surprised to encounter sci-fi. I was. I can see why Tabby and Trout, by Nich Angell, falls in last in the series of comics in VS issue one as it feels like the most niche – but it’s the series I’m most looking forward to VS comics issue 2 for. And it reminds me of Lexx, well, a little.
Pick up your copy here.
