Skuds McKinley’s shared story universe continues in issue two of Red-Eye Comics. You may recall my review for the first issue was glowing and there’s much of the same praise for this issue. I'm a huge mark for McKinley’s work and so getting to read more (and in advance) is a treat for me.
Read MoreUsually, I’m not a fan of anthologies written by one person. It takes a talented writer with a solid vision to pull off such an anthology. For the most part, creator and writer, Jacques Nyemb does just that. Humanescent is unique in that the theme isn’t superheroes, sci-fi or the typical “here’s the character tell a story with them and use these personality tropes” themed story. I’ve never read a collection of stories about “being human” and while that could come across as intentionally vague to some people, I find it to be ambitious.
Read MoreI’m a fan of Skuds McKinley. Yeah, that should take me out of the running on this review, but that’s not how Comic Bastards works. McKinley submitted Dead Days in Kowloon and let me know that Red-Eye is a vapor company that asked him to design six characters and make six comics about them, but that was the only correlation. He could do whatever with the characters and so here we come to Dead Days in Kowloon. Neo-Tokyo is dead. Long live Neo-Kowloon. What I mean by that is thank you, Skuds McKinley, for picking a city that wasn’t overplayed and over “Neo’d.” We meet Harvey Gomez, a man with a red hand as he’s on his way to a job. He’s a bounty hunter of sorts but referred to as a freelancer. He’s given a clean-up job, another freelancer fucked up and is now on the run causing the employer to send Harvey to retrieve the goods no matter what.
Read More