Comic Books

Indie Comic Roundup: The Almighties #1 and White Devil #1 Review

June 14, 2012

So a fun new trend has begun sprouting up in our little home at AiPT. Some generous publishers have been sending us some free swag so we could post our humble opinions about their content on our nerd-blog! WE’RE GROWING UP SO FAST.

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So, anyway, I’m going to be taking a look at a few of the books that were sent to us this week.

The Almighties #1

The Almighties is something of a parody-book that pokes fun at the super groups that clog up the printing machines over at the big-boy publishing companies. It has your basic rag-tag group of solo heroes teaming up to fight some larger threat.

The plot of The Almighties is fairly simple and straightforward, but only because it needs to be. First off, starting any supergroup up from scratch is going to require at least a few pages to your basic character introductions and plot points. Thankfully, these guys move through all that fairly quickly and spend more time on action and adding quirks to their characters that really help them become memorable.

The art is fairly consistent (despite there being three separate artists) and while it doesn’t have the polished feel of a Marvel or DC comic, it is in no way poor. If you’ve read any of my reviews over in our weekly Comic Critique, you know I’m a sucker for the details. While the backgrounds can fall a bit on the bland side, the effort put forth in fully individualizing every person that appears within the pages is admirable. Some of the basic anatomy and proportions can get a bit wonky at times.

As for the content of the book, there are jokes present. I’m not sure anything hits high marks on the laugh-out-loud meter but you generally finish with a sense of “I get it.” The story of the book is actually pretty neat and can cause you to give a second glance through the book which is always appreciated. Things get a bit loony towards the end but it’s a comedy book so I think it was well met.

All in all would I suggest grabbing The Almighties #1? Sure. It’s a rare sight nowadays to see 30 pages of content for only $1.99, so you best grab it if you can.

The Almighties #1 is published by Actuality Press, Rated Teen+, and is available at IndyPlanet.com and TheAlmighties.com in $3.99 regular and Variant editions, and the $1.99 Digital Edition is available now at Graphicly and Wowio.

White Devil #1

Did this pop into anyone else’s head immediately?

Just me? That’s okay.

Onto the comic at hand.

White Devil is a very interesting book. The story revolves around a small-town suburban mom who, due to a general lack of lust for life, has made some interesting personal choices that seem to have some dire consequences.

The art of White Devil kind of bounces back and forth between disappointing and outright stunning. Nate Burns has absolute talent with a pen, but only when it comes to rich landscapes and moody shadowing. His characters could definitely use work, but it is only really apparent once every few pages. It’s a hit-or-miss scenario that ultimately doesn’t jar you from the content of the book.

As for the content, this book is pretty intriguing. The characters aren’t very fleshed out, but as the book progresses you kind of get the sense that this was done on purpose. Around the halfway point the book also gets quite adult-oriented, which comes off as a well-placed shock that I guess I may have just partially ruined for you.

Overall I am quite interested in this book and I would love to read more. The mood, art and content all impress me enough to allow for some forgiveness to the smaller flaws of the book.

You can download White Devil for free over at the comic’s blog, whitedevilcomic.blogspot.com. At that price I would highly recommend it.

That’s all we got for review material this week. If you or someone you know has content that you would like reviewed on our site, be sure to contact us at contact@aiptcomics.com.