Titan Comics 2017
Story Created & Written by Andi Ewington
Illustrated by Simon Coleby
Coloured by Len O’Grady
Lettered by Jim Campbell
So apparently my childhood was incomplete because i’ve never heard of this before today and it’s been around since I was a teenager. I mean heck in the 80’s I was playing D&D so it wouldn’t have taken much to convince me to play in a post apocalyptic world driving around finding supplies fighting off rivals and whatever else was lurking around. Now that i’m reading this I wonder if it’s the inspiration for the Penelope Pitstop comic DC just did cause it feels like it would be. For me it’s all kinds of Mad Max and Death Race with a little Maximum Overdrive thrown in and oddly enough I can’t get enough!
I appreciate that we don’t go through the whole plague stuff to get to where we are. We open with a race a few years ago where a young woman is making her debut. Coincidentally it’s also the same race her father debuted in and won at that time. Also I think the way the end of that race ties into the beginning of the now storyline is pretty mad genius level stuff. Andi really weaves that together in a smooth unexpected way and it’s just another reason why i’m impressed with his writing skills.
While i’m a little sad that this is only a three parter hopefully it will make a strong enough impression that we’ll be seeing many more of them as the years progress. We get to meet De La Rosa as she makes her racing debut and then follow her adventures through her current predicament. I’m really kind of impressed as this kind of story doesn’t always lend itself well to a narrative story, it’s an RPG yes but it’s action, action, action with really a one person narrative as she makes her way through this world. Andi manages to make it interesting, showing us folks who want her dead and what could potentially be a friend or ally as well. The characterisation is as much from the action as her thoughts and that means working alongside another master of their craft.
Simon is truly amazing when it comes to research and his ability to draw anything that moves. Planes, trains, tanks, helicopters, motorcycles and automobiles doesn’t matter what it is or what research needs to be done the man is simply amazing at what he does. The openings brief look at those cars with all the advertising to the beat up version two years later it really sells the way the world is. His eye for storytelling using page layouts, through angles, perspective and use of those backgrounds really does set him apart from most folks in the industry. Oh and that candy bar yeah nicely done!
I will say that this left me feeling a number of things, like okay De La Rosa’s kind of a badass, why have I never heard of this and where can I play it?, not to mention this would make a killer movie if done right. I mean most of Earth’s population wiped out by a plague so we have no idea what folks look right or if there are mutants etc aside from those that look normal. Normal by the way is relative to the location and circumstances of how they live. I want to know more, I want to explore this world and see what’s out there and to leave the reader feeling this way means Andi and Simon more than did their job.