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| Amy reviews Survival Fetish #1 |
Survival Fetish #1, written by Patrick Kindlon (We Can Never Go Home, There’s Nothing There), is a dystopian adventure where downtown Honolulu is being controlled by militia and gangs. While we don’t know the circumstances leading up to this moment, we discover that the civilians have begun shutting themselves off to the outside world by staying in buildings and relying on the runners for everything. Saheer is one such runner, which is someone who runs across the city transporting medicine and other vital items to the citizens. It might sound harmless enough until you discover that the militia and gangs shoot at the messengers while they run, making this job extremely dangerous. It is comforting to see the residents working together to save everyone and get what is needed so that no one else perishes.
Saheer is the main character, and he is young, fast, and swift. While he is careful when he runs, he gets grazed by a bullet, which changes everything for him and he starts to wonder if he will be able to continue to keep it up and stay alive. His girlfriend’s name is Noe, whose parents grow food for the residents so they don’t need to get any on the outside. The only problem with the characters in my opinion is that they aren’t well developed yet. I’m hoping that in the issues to come we will see more well-rounded characters. Personally, I don’t have any particular feelings for them at the moment and when Saheer was grazed by the bullet I didn’t even care. For me, it’s the characters who really help make the comic special, so I’m hoping that I will come to love the characters and actually care about what happens to them.
While the style of art by Antonio Fuso (James Bond) isn’t my favorite, I thought it did well capturing the body language and expressions on the characters as well as conveying the dangers of being a messenger. The action scenes are well done and help draw the reader further into the story. The comic is done in black and white, which isn’t necessarily bad, but adding some color here and there would be a plus for me. The imagery is definitely for mature audiences, I wouldn’t recommend this comic to a kid. The ending has an intriguing twist that makes me interested in how the following issues will play out, as this is the first in a five-issue series. This comic from Black Mask Studios is available for purchase now.
-Amy Walker-Lafollette