By Dustin Cabeal
Sun Bakery is a comic anthology written and illustrated by Corey Lewis. It’s pretty rare in anthologies to find one creator doing everything, but here it seems Lewis had more than one idea he wanted to work on and so instead of reading just one awesome tale from Lewis, we have three. And I’m not complaining. The first tale is called “Arem, ” and it’s easy, o sum up… its basically Metroid with its own twist. Arem is also our character’s name as we see her working out and getting geared up in her not-Metroid, but totally Metroid battle suit. She heads down to a planet and begins capturing videos. I won’t spoil the subject for you because they’re quite funny. This is a humorous story which makes it even better. If it was straight up homaging it’s influences I don’t think, I would have liked it. The fact that it’s goofy makes it entertaining to read.
“Arem” is colored in all purple hues. This is important to point out because it gives this story a distinct look which is true of each story in the issue. The color hues also serve to give it a very sci-fi look as well.
The second story is called “Dream Skills,” and it was by far my favorite of the issue. I won’t tell you much about the story since the story is about the world and it does an incredible job of explaining the world without it being annoying or exposition-y. I mean there is basically a lot of exposition, but Lewis finds a way to make it flow naturally with the world. This is also the longest story of the issue. The short and sweet gist is that we all have force fields naturally occurring around us so guns are useless and the only way you can hurt someone is with a blade. Meaning the era of swords is upon us again. There’s a lot more to the story though so read it.
The art for “Dream Skills” is colored in all pink and a yellowish tan. It’s a great look for the story and again made it distinct from the other two tales. I really enjoyed the art for this tale the most. Granted the comic is all in the same style, but I think the world was so appealing that it boosted the art here.
There’s more to the issue, but I’m going to leave it there for you so you have some surprises. There’s another story and some bonus content that’s been added since we first presented the series on the site.
Overall the writing is solid. The first and last story don’t have a ton of dialogue or story development, but they’re well put together, especially for an anthology. They present enough of the world to interest you and bring you back for more. “Dream Skills” has the most story and dialogue and it’s very good. Not just the world that’s created, but the two female characters we meet are interesting, but different from each other. That’s distinct already in how they talk to each other. In general, the world building here is skilled and frankly left me wanting more of each story.
The art overall is really fucking good. You can see Lewis’ influences in his style, but it’s his presentation and coloring that really makes his style distinct and all his own. Particularly the balance and use of gradients on “Dream Skills” was wonderful. Usually gradients in a comic is the kiss of death, but here it worked for the world and frankly looked cool. All of the character designs were extremely cool looking. These are characters you want to dress as because they’re so iconic looking.
When I look at this book it’s exactly what I want from an indie comic. It’s professional work, but it’s doing what it wants and doing it well. That’s the key difference, breaking the storytelling and “comic rules” is only good when you’re good or better. Lewis bends the medium to his will and it’s pretty damn great to read because of it. Books like Sun Bakery is why I read indie comics and I wish more comics were to this level of talent.
Score: 5/5
Sun Bakery #1
Creator: Corey Lewis
Publisher: Image Comics