Starve The Beast is perhaps too mysterious for its own good. I have some genuine interest in following the story more, but only if the next chapter had some major reveals. The issue opens with a man lying in bed in a very Howard Hughes looking room. There’s hash marks indicating that he’s been there for thirty-two days. Suddenly a child shows up and he asks for their help and water. More days seemingly pass and the man is given cans of soda for nourishment. This is apparently all he needs to get by. Eventually he asks the kid to help him leave because his legs aren’t 100%.
They seem to be in a heavily guarded house and this man’s escape brings about a lot of attention. From there we meet up with the kid’s sister and she kind of sorta reveals that this guy holds some importance in the world.
The problem I had, was that we’re clearly picking up in the story after some big event has occurred. Our main character is a prisoner of sorts, but then also a very powerful man. It’s finding out where we are on the timeline because according to him, a lot has happened in the short time he’s been gone. Which leads me to believe that the world has been jacked up for a while… or that it became jacked up in a very short period of time. That’s what I mean about being too mysterious. It raises questions, but doesn’t offer any answers outside of vague hints.
Which isn’t terrible. I mean that’s how the real world works and clearly this story is trying to follow that. You wouldn’t needlessly explain who you are if someone already knows who you are. The problem is we just aren’t given enough context for the world. Something as simple as a short narration would have helped, but instead we’re just left wondering. The dialogue is sparse and thankfully so. It’s pretty run-of-the-mill and has an irregular flow to it.
The art is interesting. I can’t help but think I’ve seen this technic used in other comics. It’s a bit more successful here, but not by much. It’s clearly all-digital, but almost done as a negative. It’s as if it was illustrated on a black canvas and colored on top. I don’t know if that means it was actually inverted or not, but it’s just an okay look. It makes everyone look robotish and dystopian. I’m personally not a fan of the style, but art is the most subjective part of any comic. The character designs fail to stand out and we’re never given enough of a character’s facial features to pick them out from a line up.
Overall, I would probably check out at least another issue of this series. I’m curious to see where the story goes, but if there weren’t some reveals to hook me again, I wouldn’t be back after that. There’s something here, but it needs some more polish. Then it’ll be something special, but for now it’s just something entertaining.
Score: 2/5
Starve the Beast #1 Writer: Danny Homan Artist: Sergio Vicencio Price: Pay What You Want Website