Prophet #22

Written by Brandon Graham
Art by Simon Roy

Prophet is definitely my new favourite comic.  At the moment, I even like it more than The Walking Dead and Scalped, which are usually tied as the books I most look forward to each month.  I guess I need to give Brandon Graham and company (it looks like Farel Dalrymple will be taking over the art soon; whether that is permanent or not I don't know) a little more time to prove that this book will be consistently this excellent.

For now, though, excellent it is.  Jon Prophet is continuing his 'mission', which at this point has him walking across a desert infested by biting insects somewhere far into the future where all that remains of mankind are giant rusting war machines.  He hitches a ride with a caravan of creatures that mine some sort of mineral from the desert via gigantic lumbering creatures that excrete the refined substance, and things go fine for him until he decides to interrupt an important ritual, thinking that he is saving their king's life.

Brandon Graham is very good at writing bizarre mayhem, and he has made good use of his world-building skills to give us a book that is equal parts Conan, Moebius, and Orc Stain.  Simon Roy is one of a very select few artists who can match his penchant for weirdness.  This is easily the most inventive comic on the stands right now, and I can't wait for each new issue.

This issue has a back-up feature, which is a reprint of a comic from the 90s by Fil Barlow.  It's easy to see how this strip would have influenced Graham - it reminds me of some of his work - but I didn't really like it.