Review: The Courier Liberty and Death #1 (of 3)

The year is 2101 A.D. and the world is a desolate place, with townships miles and miles apart. Between the towns the lands are rife with threats such as the primals. Still commerce and transport of products and people must still go ahead. Up steps The Couriers who will transport items between the towns. Kind of like The Postman movie, though not as altruistic and done with the Zenescope flair.

Eve is one such Courier. Having escaped the clutches of the ruthless gang / town leader Gillings, Eve must once more deal with the devil in order to save her brother and her soul!

Ralph Tedesco looks to continue the story of Eve which started way back in 2017. The scenes in the book are set out in a pretty uniform manner; the hook which brings Eve back to the town of Liberty and Gillings is a trope in of itself. Things are quite functionary, moving along at a decent pace, though the length of time since the last series weighs heavy on the dialogue as there is exposition abound, some of which only serves to mirror the intro page, so I have to ask why waste time telling the reader stuff they already know? Eve is the sort of character who is tough as nails but who also wears her heart on her sleeve when it comes to family. Tedesco looks to show these different elements to Eve by putting in her different situations including friend, road warrior and party goer, the latter featuring a dress cut to there; this is Zenescope remember!

The art is supplied by Oliver Borges who tries hard, but ultimately the Mark Bagley inspired frameworks fails to impress throughout the book; even the staple of a pretty girl in a ridiculously thigh high cut dress fails to hit the mark. I have looked at Borges work on artstation.com, so I can see influences of other artists in his work, including Alan Davis. Could this book be more based on his own style? Here, faces start out strong, but soon devolve when other characters are brought into the panel or when the camera angle shifts to a wide screen approach. Having said that, there are some clever page designs, having odd shaped panels does give the actions scenes a sense of pace. No sooner do I pride Zenescope for the colouring technique, they go and drop a book with three colorists credited. Fran Gamboa with J.C. Ruiz are helped out by Maxflan Araujo. I am not sure who did what, so I will say that the opening pages, prior to meeting Eve are the best of the book, whereas the party lacks nuance, unless the idea was to create a fake over the top environment to contrast the normal hard living that these characters normally have to deal with. Letters are supplied by Carlos M. Mangual who does a decent job, though I would have liked to see more deviation in font type when Artie spoke.

Wastelands and survivors aren’t a new phenomenon, with some pretty famous ones around long before Rick and his Walking Dead crew hit the racks. When it comes to this type of story, there always seems to be another story type mixing it up, be it science fiction in Logan’s Run, zombies in the aforementioned Walking Dead and so on. For me, there is nothing of any great nuance to this book and its settings. If you are looking for a heroine of the wasteland type of affair, check out Lola XOXO by Siya Oum, published by Aspen Comics. It may not have the titillation of a thigh high cut dress, but Oum offers gorgeous artwork in every book with a story that is well plotted for the long run, rather than a three issue snippet.

Writing – 2.5 Stars
Art – 2.5 Stars
Colors – 3 Stars

Overall – 2.5 Stars

Written by; Ralph Tedesco
Art by; Oliver Borges
Colors by; Fran Gamboa with J.C. Ruiz and Maxflan Araujo
Letters by; Carlos M.Mangual
Published by; Zenescope Entertainment

Author Profile

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow

Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network