What I Bought 9/4/2020

I tried to pick up some of the books I missed from last month, plus a few books that came out last week. Didn't have a high success rate - apparently a lot of people were highly anticipating Spy Island - but here's a couple of books. Both first issues.

Broken Gargoyles #1, by Bob Salley (writer), Stan Yak (artist), Marco Pagnotta and Robert Nugent (colorists), Justin Birch (letterer) - There's gotta be a better place to try and get a ride than in the middle of burning wreckage.

Two main characters. Doug Prescott, presumed dead in France, now roaming the U.S., gathering friends and weapons, unhappy with what happened to the 117th Regiment during World War 1. That's him in the big trenchcoat. William Manco, who served with Prescott, and has half a metal face. He's still struggling with his experiences, and is trying to deal with them by drinking a lot. Which is not doing much for his wife or son.

I'm not sure what angle Manco's planning to take. Probably whatever gets him money or a job he can hold. He's lost, and Prescott is presumably someone connected to something he understands. Prescott, I think he's really just looking out for the people he knew in the war. Whatever compassion he had for anyone else seems sorely burned out. A convict helps him when a guard's got a bead on him, and Prescott does agree to give the guy a ride to the next town. But expects the man to cut through his dead friend's limbs to get the shackles off. He doesn't outright say it, but there's an air of "I had to do worse, what are you complaining about?"

Although the next time we see Ben, the shackle is still around his wrist, but the chain is broken partway down, so maybe he found another way.

Yak seems to be taking advantage of the story being in the 1920s to go nuts with the facial hair. The sideburns and mustaches on some of these dudes. The coloring is seems to vary between muddy and kind of washed out. When there's a bright light in the panel, it tends overwhelm everything else. Both options seem appropriate for the setting, not really moving in high-society circles here. Nobody really looks dirty or scruffy exactly. Manco's the closest, he's got some stubble and his hair's a little messy, but you'd think the prisoners, or guys trying to hijack an army shipment in the middle of the desert would show a little more of life's effects.

We Only Find Them When They're Dead #1, by Al Ewing (writer), Simone Di Meo (artist), Mariasara Miotti (color assists), AndWorld Design (letterer) - I'd always suspected gods were just excessively large billboard ads, but it's great to get confirmation.

The main source of resources in the future is the bodies of giant dead beings. All the salvage crews stake claims to one part or the other, and the crews with big financial backing get the choicest spots. Government taxes the shit out of what you harvest, supplies are limited. It's a rough way to make a living. One crew, captained by a guy named Malik, has decided they need to do things differently. They're going to go find themselves a live god and. . . I'm not sure. Kill and harvest all of it for themselves? Ask the god to give them super awesome stuff? Just be able to say the saw one alive? I don't know.

There's some backstory between Malik and one of the "enforcers" (read: cops) named Richter. Richter is, frankly, a dick. Malik's crew stick strictly to what they claimed, follows the rules, and Richter marks them down to be triple-checked simply because she decides it's suspicious they followed the rules. Because Malik's parents might have been rulebreakers. So, you know, typical shithead cop behavior.

Everything's in, what I'd call "TRON" colors, or neon or whatever you want to call it. Lit with these shades of purples, golds, blues, whatever. I guess it makes it look futuristic, although I wonder if it gets hard on these eyes after awhile (for the characters, I mean). The actual harvesting from the god is very dispassionately depicted. A double-page of small panels showing the very methodical process. Whatever awe a person might experience seeing a being like that is entirely lost in the assembly line deconstruction of the body. So that works pretty well. Di Meo rarely draws two members of the crew in the same panel. It's a lot of narrow close-ups on one person's face. Maybe that's meant to show they aren't really a "crew", not in the Fast & the Furious "we're family" sense. Just four people, working a job together.

It's not a bad first issue as far as laying some of the groundwork for how the fictional society works. I'm less sure of it as something that's gonna get you to buy the next issue. Does it really get the reader to find out what Malik's after, or how he's gonna find a live god? I'm mildly curious, but I can't say Ewing and Di Meo reached and grabbed my attention.