Saturday, June 16, 2012

Planetoid #1

by Ken Garing

When I saw the solicitation for this new series by Ken Garing, I thought it looked pretty good, and decided to take a chance on it.  I'm very pleased I did, as this is a very good comic.

The book opens with a spacecraft pilot finding himself being drawn towards a planet with a strange electromagnetic field.  He ejects from his ship just before it crashes, and finds himself on a field of ruined vessels and space junk.  Alone, he begins to explore the world, coming across some small lizards, and a particularly aggressive mechanical sea snake.

He also finds another person, who explains that the planet does have some human inhabitants, remnants of a slave-run mining operation who were abandoned when the planetoid's region of space was taken over by an alien race.

Garing's art is terrific, as he shows us the strange landscapes and industrial decay of this planet.  The book reminds me of the early issues of Brandon Graham's run on Prophet, but without the variety of strange creatures.  There seems to be a resurgence of good science fiction in comics lately, which is a nice thing to see.  Garing has figured out a lot about his vision of the future, and I like how he's sharing that information slowly. 

I do wonder how this planetoid could have been used for mining, if it's impossible for vessels to leave it, but I'm sure that will be addressed eventually.  This is well worth checking out - go get it.

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