The Strangers #1

Written by Chris Roberson
Art by Scott Kowalchuk

Amid a pile of preview stories, reprints, and undisguised advertisements, only Oni Press can be counted on to deliver top-notch material each and every Free Comic Book Day.

This year, they launch The Strangers, a new series by writer Chris Roberson and artist Scott Kowalchuk.  This book is a bit of a Cold War mash-up, taking elements from The Avengers (the British TV show), Mission Impossible, and Doom Patrol.  The titular Strangers are a trio of secret agents with some superhuman abilities, who mostly work to stop OCCULT, a villainous group in the Hydra/Cobra vein.

OCCULT appears to have taken over a small Caribbean island, and so our heroes set out to infiltrate it.  They discover that some sort of ruins are being dug up in the jungle, but don't get too far in discovering the plot before being captured.

The book feels like it was written for Roberson's iZombie collaborator Michael Allred, but Scott Kowalchuk is a good substitute, providing art that feels like an homage to the days of Kirby and Ditko, while remaining fresh.  I'm not sure if this is the first issue of a mini-series or an ongoing, but Roberson strikes the right balance between introducing the characters and keeping the story flowing.  I wasn't sure if I was going to preorder the second issue (available, along with a version of this book that you have to pay for, in the new Previews), but now I definitely am.  Good stuff.

Bad Medicine #1

Written by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir and Antony Johnston
Art by Christopher Mitten

Of all the publishers that participate in Free Comic Book Day, I think it's Oni Press that has best figured out how to make the day a viable one.  Two years ago, they used FCBD to debut their series The Sixth Gun, guaranteeing that unique and wonderful series a much wider audience than it would have gotten otherwise.  Last year, they did the same thing for Spontaneous, a terrific mini-series about spontaneous human combustion.  I probably would have picked up both of these comics anyway, but I appreciated being given the opportunity to sample the series for free in a meaningful way (instead of just being given a couple of story pages and some character sketches).

This year, they've done the same thing, with the first issue of Bad Medicine, a new mini-series by the team of Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir, and Christopher Mitten.  DeFilippis and Weir have written a few graphic novels together, and are probably still best known for their very good revitalization of the New Mutants a ways back.  Christopher Mitten has worked with them before on Past Lies and The Tomb, as well as on the long-running Oni series Wasteland with Antony Johnston.

Bad Medicine is a medical thriller.  A corpse is discovered in a scientific laboratory, and it appears to have been decapitated.  Soon though, it is discovered that the victim's head is intact and attached to the body, it's just invisible. As you can imagine, this leads to all sorts of problems for the detective on the case, Joely Huffman.  She has few leads, except for the name of a doctor who left the profession five years ago, after causing the death of one of his patients.  He has spent these five years on a 'walkabout', researching alternative and bizarre approaches to healing.  He has something to do with all of this, and is eager to help.  As well, there is an pair of CDC scientists involved, who have a bit of a love/hate relationship going on.

There is plenty to like here, as DeFilippis and Weir lay down the groundwork for their series.  Mitten's art is always nice, and is always much easier to follow in colour.  Wisely, Oni have solicited the next issue of this series for next month (previously, they waited until after FCBD to continue their series, leaving a large gap between issues that may not have capitalized on their wider audiences).

This issue also has a Wasteland short by Antony Johnston and Mitten.  It appears to be set either just after the current storyline, or before Micheal and Abi ran in to the Dog Tribe a ways back, as it has the two of them traveling together and finding an injured man in a ravine.  It's a bleak story, but it helps to demonstrate the aesthetic of this wonderful series.

Spontaneous #1

Written by Joe Harris
Art by Brett Weldele

I think Oni has a winning formula for dealing with Free Comic Book Day.  Instead of giving out short anthologies, or previewing upcoming books, they give the entire first issue of a new series.  It worked last year with Sixth Gun (which is an excellent series), and has now definitely gotten me interested in reading the rest of Spontaneous.

Although, to be honest, I would have bought this if it weren't free.  Spontaneous is written by Joe Harris, who impressed me with Ghost Projekt, and is drawn by Brett Weldele, an impressive artist whose last work, The Light, put him into my must-buy category.

Spontaneous is about a young man who has a system for tracking down people who are going to spontaneously combust.  He attempts to interview a man in a mall foodcourt before he goes up in flames, a case which draws the attention of a plucky young wanna-be journalist.  Together, they start working the guy's system to find the next potential victim.

Harris hints that there may be something about SHC that makes it not so spontaneous, although at this early stage of the series, we have no clue what that might be.  Weldele uses the same digital colouring techniques he used in The Light to add an unearthly quality to the pages, and to use light to draw the reader's eyes into his scenes.  He's grown a lot as an artist in the last few years.

As with Sixth Gun, this first issue is being offered for purchase alongside the second issue of the series in the latest Previews, if you're interested in reading it but missed your chance at picking it up for free.  It's worth ordering.

The Sixth Gun #1

Written by Cullen Bunn
Art by Brian Hurtt

I have to say that it's pretty classy of Oni to use Free Comic Book Day as a way of starting off a new series.  As a small publisher, the cost of producing a colour comic for free must be immense, and I hope it pays off for them in terms of garnering sales for this new book.  I think it's smart that the second issue was only solicited in the most recent issue of Previews, making it more likely committed comics readers will pre-order it (I know I probably will).  On the other hand, new readers unfamiliar with the workings of the industry who liked this book today will probably not be around come June for the next issue, so it's a gamble.

This is a pretty decent comic book.  I wasn't all that fond of Bunn and Hurtt's Damned series, but the world they've created here is much more intriguing to me.  The comic is set in a Reconstruction-era United States where magic and hauntings are common.  The movie treatment for this could be Jonah Hex meets Madame Xanadu I suppose.

There is a rich widow who has hired a group of Pinkertons (man these guys are everywhere in comics these days) to track down a number of enchanted objects, chief among them being 'The General's' gun.  There is another guy looking for this same gun.  They find it (and almost each other) on a small farm where its owner is able to protect himself for a while, before the gun 'bonds' with his daughter, and she is abducted.

I am curious to see where this title is going, and appreciated the opportunity to sample it free of charge.