Wasteland #29

Written by Antony Johnston
Art by Christopher Mitten and Remington Veteto

This is only the fifth issue of Wasteland to be published in the last year.  That is not so shocking for an independent title, especially one of this quality (check out stuff like Elephantmen or Godland, or Walking Dead a few years ago).  However, when this title began, it was uniquely regular in its publication schedule, and I have really noticed and disliked the change in regularity.

With this issue, Antony Johnston provides us with the explanation that Christopher Mitten, the extraordinary artist of the first 28 issues, can no longer manage the title.  This is a shame, as Mitten has done a fantastic job in constructing the Wasteland world.  This is a book with a lot of unique design elements, as the team have carefully and exhaustively constructed the science fiction world where this story takes place.  I consider myself a fan of Mitten, even though at times I found his art to be confusing and hard to follow.  I wish him luck in his future projects, and will be very likely to pick them up.

And so, with this issue, Mitten is only doing layouts, and new artist Remington Veteto is doing the pencils and inks.  This arrangement will last for a while, before Veteto takes over full art duties.  In these types of situations, its often hard to tell who has done what, but it seems that the baton is being passed to capable hands.  Veteto has a stronger line than Mitten, which gives the figures more weight.  I always felt that Mitten's often washed-out look worked best in the desert scenes, giving the hint of brightness, but in this story, set within Newbegin's buildings, this heavier look worked well.

The spotlight of this issue is on Dexus, the Watchman, as Johnston goes over the same events of the last few issues, this time from his perspective.  Had these books come out more quickly, this story might be getting boring by now, but with the lengthy delay between issues, I find it only helps to solidify each character's take on events.  I look forward to some resolution of this story, and the focus being placed on Golden Voice in the next issue (which hopefully comes out soon).