Comics Features

REVIEW: Home #1

Where is your home? That is the question a young woman named Elysia is about to ask herself, as she’s thrown from a life of being ridiculed and judged into one she never expected! A new journey is about to begin!

Home is a very unique and vibrant comic mini-series by Todd Black. Issue 1 focuses on Elysia telling us about every aspect of her life and how miserable it is, and for the record, it’s pretty damn miserable. At the moment, I am really enjoying having a female as the main protagonist because whether you agree with me or not, I am just getting bored of all these male super heroes. I just think by having a female taking the lead, it strips away that stereotypical ‘damsel in distress’ and makes it more engaging by proving women can be just as bad ass as men. On to the comic however, Elysia is a very interesting character because the story that is unfolding before her really relates to our everyday struggles that we face in life.

Throughout issue one, we learn that Elysia is in a dead-end job, strapped for cash and trying to figure out her purpose in life, which again, I am sure we all can relate to, one way or another. This creates a lot of emphasis on Elysia during the development of the story because we feel the same pain and hardship that she is facing. By doing this, Black has already created a unique engagement for us readers as the issues being presented  are easily understandable, and with the combination of Dinh Nguyen‘s and Beth Varni‘s artistic work, it also allows us to really see the attitude and feelings surfacing from this character.

The narrative and writing in the issue is spot on. Black does really well in regards to his writing style; he manages to create a nice and simple development of this character, and we genuinely see her starting to grow; even if it is only the first issue, but this is good, because we know we’re in store for a huge amount of growth concerning Eylsia’s character. In result of this, Black creates a good image with Elysia, from the moments we learn about her blue hair to the point where her world goes from what seems to be normal, to suddenly turning on its head.

Other than this, the art work in this comic is truly beautiful. Like I’ve already mentioned, not only does it present to us some impressive colours, but it really highlights Elysia’s mood, intensely capturing the facial expressions. The way this relates to the narrative creates such a true sense of character when reading.

Another element of this issue that should be acknowledge is how the dialogue and the art partner with one another. As the story started to develop, so did the art, and both coincided with each other. With the teamwork of both the writer and the artists, the use of simple dialogue and bold art work abstractedly brought the character to life for the reader to see.

Overall, I think this is a fantastic start of a series. The narrative throughout this issue is very easy to follow, and the character breaking the fourth wall throughout the story helped enhanced the pacing and readability.

If you haven’t already, please give this comic a read. Todd Black and the team need to get some well deserved recognition for this start of the mini-series. I already want to get my hands on the next issue!

Links to the purchasing and facebook page for Home can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/HomeMiniSeries/

Home – Issue 01

Did you check out the first issue of Home yet? Let us know in the comments section and on our Twitter page!

About the author

Steven Galea