Young, Max – Blacked Out #1

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Blacked Out #1

I would never recommend that somebody buy a mini comic because it will eventually be worth something, as they suffer the same fate as most other comics: it takes decades, if that, before they’re worth more than the cover price, and even then you have to find somebody willing to buy them. That being said, if the sheer quality of Max’s comics doesn’t convince you (and there’s plenty of that in the two issues I’ve seen so far), this guy is so clearly going to be a big deal in comics someday that you’d be stupid not to buy these early minis. The technical term for his art is “crazy awesome fantastic,” he seems to be doing a nice job of building up his characters, and he also looks to have a long term plan for this one. I should probably talk about the plot at least a little bit and no, that ridiculous cover of his was not a fake-out. This comic starts with our hero waking up in a bar from being blackout drunk, only to discover that every biker in the bar has been either beaten senseless or killed (his friend says killed, but I think there may be a few more repercussions for something like that than are depicted here). They go back to their apartment, where we see that the two of them are roommates with a young lady who appears to be his concerned platonic friend. They tell him that the can’t hold his liquor, what a problem that is, and eventually wander off to a party with all the booze they can drink for $30. You’d think that you could see where this is going from here, but you’d be wrong. At this party our hero meets up with an older redneck man who’s been watching our hero, and he decides to impart his wisdom about being blackout drunk on the dude. It’s so brilliant that I don’t even want to give it away here, but kudos to Max simply for coming up with that idea. I’m really looking forward to future issues of this one, and you can always tell a book is a winner when it instantly raises your opinion of the past work of the artist. More, please! $3