The Unexpected #1 is a one-shot from DC Comics/ Vertigo. Under that irresistible cover from Rafael Grampa (look at it! a woman in bloody stilettos, with dead birds strapped to her about to go psycho on some ’50s lovers at a skull screening drive-in!) are some great stories, in the vein of Twilight Zone. As with all mixed bags like this, there’s bound to be some losers amongst the winners, but the strike rate here is pretty good and I hope they publish another one.
The Great Karlini by Dave Gibbons is the first tale. It’s about a cheating escaplogist who eventually gets his comeuppance. It’s all told in 8 panel pages and his narration which lends a certain weight.
Dogs by G. Willow Wilson and Robert Rodriguez is frankly, awesome. It’s a simple story but looks great with Rodriguez’s slightly sketchy and expressive visual style. Set in a small country town filled with pet canines who get fed up with the stupid and violent humans around them, they suddenly start walking upright and take revenge. It’s an entertaining “tables are turned” story in just 8 pages.
Look Alive by Alex Gracian and Jill Thompson is about a woman who’s a zombie in a world full of them who pretends to be normal with constant drug use and lots of makeup, but can’t speak as she still sounds like one. She manages to survive with her crafty ways tough.
The dark humour continues with A Most Delicate Monster by writer Jeffrey Rotter and artist Lelio Bonaccorso which centres on a cloned caveman who’s unleashed upon the world to experience its sin and excess.
There’s a tragic muder drama in The Land by Joshua Dysart and Farel Dalrymple, violent survival in Mat Johnsons’s and David Lapham’s Family First and the blurring of real and online life in Joshua Hale Fialkov’s and Rahsan Ekedal’s Alone. The last two short comics are Americana by Brian Wood and Emily Carroll and a preview of DC’s upcoming Voodoo Child #1 by Selwyn Sefu Hinds and Denys Cowan. They both look good, but don’t really fit in with the thematic link of the previous tales.
If you grabbed the recent Strange Adventures anthology which used sci-fi as a template, this should entice you, if you also like supernatural stuff that is. I hope DC produce more of these grab bags, as not only are they a good “in” for newbies, but they give both veteran and up and coming creators an audience.
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