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Advance Review: Void Trip #1

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

What happens, when you and your bestie are stranded on a planet, with a beat up ship, a stalker on your tail and no froot to get high on!  Well, this peculiar and very specific set of occurrences is exactly where we find Gabe and Ana.  The pair are on a bit of a quest to find the planet Euphoria, which would be easy they just switched on the damn A.I!

This issue is not only an introduction to the characters, but also the kind misadventures that this pair of space vagabonds stumble into.  Their world is very much a hand to  mouth to froot kind of existence, with the choices to take the journey via the spiritual method via the space drug froot, rather than the futures version of sat-nav, being the catalyst.

Writer Ryan O’Sullivan, of Warhammer 40,000 fame, sets his stall out early.  His characters, the last two humans left in the universe, are trying to be free in universe that doesn’t really want that.  The timing is striking with people in the real world taking stances against that which in the past had seemed unimpeachable; for various causes and injustices that has risen up so recently.  In Gabe, we get a weary world traveller, who is caught up in the world wind that is froot-head Ana. The strength of O’Sullivan’s writing is that everyone knows a “Ana”; that open person who doesn’t give a rat’s about anybody else’s opinion, who never shuts-up and thinks that they are the only person with an idea or wants or needs.  Whilst there is a need for explanation, at least in the early going, the manner in which this is done is a little off balanced to me.  Maybe I am not supposed to like Ana in which case O’Sullivan has done a great job.

Plaid Klaus provides the art and the colors on the book, possibly taking artistic licence from Star Wars with desert landscapes and alien bars.  The book also has vaguely European vibe and could easily fit in at Tharg’s little corner of the universe.  Klaus does give his characters cartoon styled faces, which I suppose could be seen as a physical reflection of the drug use within the book and of course there at plenty of aliens abound.  The figure art works well within the confines of the panel structure, with intimation used at times in lieu of detail.  Klaus give the book a sort of painted style that, very much like Star Wars, give this particular universe a lived in feel.

Image Comics have never shied away from books that depict sex, violence or drugs.  The pair in this book may very well be metaphoric stoners, and I am sure that will engender them to a raft of readers.  Whilst I am an “each to their own” kind of guy, this isn’t a subculture I have a lot of experience in, so at times, throughout the issue, I got the feeling that I wasn’t the target audience.  Still, I am not going to let that little fact detract from a well thought out, well put together book.

Writing – 4 Stars
Art -4 Stars
Colors – 4 Stars

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Writing: Ryan O’Sullivan
Cover: Plaid Klaus
Pencils/Inks: Daniel Indro
Colours: Plaid Klaus
Lettering: Aditya Bidikar
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99

Void Trip #1 hits the racks on November 22nd!

SEP170684 – Void Trip #1

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
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