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Charlton, Chris & Various Artists – Sleepless #1
Sleepless #1
I’ll get to the quality of this book in a minute, but when you review comics for as long as I have you start to develop some serious pessimism when there’s a long lag between issues of a series. In this case this comic came out in 2012, a #2 was mentioned (but, in fairness, no date was promised) and now it’s April 2016 with no second issue. However! This same writer has six issues of another series (Binary Gray) done and available, and two issues of another series (Black of Heart) available, so it’s not like he’s slacking. Maybe he’s just having trouble coming up with more stories for this theme. Which, in case you’re wondering and haven’t wandered off by now, is basically horror stories in the vein of Twilight Zone or Skeleton Crew (according to Chris in his afterward). Four stories in this, and first up is a fairly standard zombie story about a man who has given up hope and has his back against the wall. I kind of saw the ending coming, but I’ve read far too many zombie stories over the years, so good luck surprising me on that stuff. Next up is the story of a man who has waited out the apocalypse all by himself, listening for radio signals and coming to the end of his food reserves. The third story has a pretty drastic tonal shift, as it’s all about a redneck who gets himself abducted by aliens and his fight to escape, with a pretty great last couple of pages that turns it in an unexpected direction. Finally there’s the tale of a young boy who is tormented by bullies at school and his overprotective mother. Again, I did not see that ending coming, which is always appreciated. A different artist draws each story, and they all bring a unique touch to it, with my favorite being David Hollenbach because of his gorgeous, haunting artwork about the man who is living alone through the apocalypse. So yeah, I may not have loved the whole book, but there’s more than enough good stuff here to make it worth recommending. $6
Mitchell, Brian John & Badon, Joe – Built #3
Built #3
Is it possible for a comic to be one long “awwwww!!!” And just to clarify that, I mean that sound effect to indicate cuteness, not terror. This time around our hero the free robot has taken refuge with a lady who seemingly likes to take in strays. As such, in this issue the robot gets to know a stray cat she has taken in, and gets to observe the behavior and speech patterns of this creature. The bits about it not functioning properly (as it’s a bit panicked about being taken in initially) and it malfunctioning but being strangely endearing regardless (while purring) were hilarious. I’m generally against spoiling such moments in a review, but there are more than a few of them sprinkled in here. I have no idea of the direction of this series overall, as this entire issue was confined to the house, but I’m still intrigued to see where this is going. This issue, all by itself, is adorable, and one of those issues that you could show non-comics reading people to get them on your side. $1
Mitchell, Brian John & Badon, Joe – Built #1
Built #1
Here it is! Brian’s 100th ongoing series! OK, maybe I’m being a bit of a glib dick, as that’s not even closely to being literally true, but damn, this man has a lot of ongoing titles to juggle. It doesn’t hurt that they’re all in comics roughly the size of your thumbs placed next to each other, but it’s still an impressive achievement. This one deals with a robot who breaks free of his programming and decides to escape. This robot is on all the time, constantly improving itself, and it knows that its behavior will be noticed sooner or later, so this escape is a matter of self-preservation. Anyway, it manages to escape, is eventually found by a group of angry humans, and discovers just how unlikely humans are to listen to a sentient robot. Things end on a note that quite obviously makes this another continuing series and why not? There are all kinds of possibilities from here. Sure, “robot gains sentience, escapes from captors and wants to join humanity” story has been done before, but at this point I have full confidence in Brian’s ability to get something new out of it. That and Joe Badon’s scratchy, almost panicked art was perfect for the story. So yes, the verdict is that this is another potentially excellent series. Or another potential series that is abandoned early on, and only time will make that clear. For now I’d say it’s worth your support, but what do I know? $1
