Proof Endangered #1

Written by Alex Grecian
Art by Riley Rossmo

Proof started out very strongly, with it's tales of a Sasquatch who lived and worked the Lodge, a government-run preserve for Cryptids - creatures so rare as to be thought of as fictional.  From the Lodge, Proof and his human associates traveled the world, dealing with Chupacabras, Thunderbirds, Faeries, baby dinosaurs, and any other number of strange creatures.  The comic started with a Fables meets Hellboy vibe, and it worked very well.

Then the creators started doing some weird stuff.  They showed us what was going to be happening in a year from now, and then had the Lodge come apart, as its leader disappeared, a woman long thought dead showed up, and Proof left to search for previously unknown family members based upon the sudden arrival of a Sasquatch finger, mysteriously mailed to him.  And the title ended.

Over the last arc, the comic was plagued with delays, so I wasn't surprised when the creators put the book on hiatus for a few months.  Now it's back, and supposedly 'new reader friendly', but having read every issue of the first volume, I'm not too clear on what's going on.  Proof is in some unnamed city (presumably New York, but I didn't know that it has a Little Tokyo), and so are all of his friends.  His enemies, in the form of Mi-Chen-Po and some unnamed Chupacabra are around too, and they're killing people (but we don't know why).  Proof's partner and his girlfriend go shopping and get attacked, and someone new takes over The Lodge.  It's all pretty uneven and cryptic - not the way to bring in a bunch of new readers.

Having seen this book at its best, I'm willing to give Grecian and Rossmo the benefit of the doubt, but I hope they get some serious direction into this thing quickly.  Jacking the price up to $3.99 gives this title a much lower abandonment threshold, so I expect to be impressed quickly.