Image releases the first issue of a four issue mini-series this week, but is it worth the buy?

Here is the summary from Image:

A foul-mouthed struggling screenwriter who moonlights as a car thief. An obscenely wealthy rapper completely disconnected from the real world. A dying cosmonaut on his way back to Earth.

Los Angeles is being toyed with by destructive forces that repeatedly find the city through time and swallow it whole, and those three are the only people able to save it – if they survive the fanatics who live in the hills, National Security Agency agents, and the horrors that lurk in the Pacific Ocean.

Change is an interesting story, that doesn’t mean it’s bad, but it is a tad a bit confusing to follow. The creative team shows they wanted to go in a different direction with this comic, and it shows. We meet our characters early in the story: Sonia, a foul-mouthed screenwriter looking for a big break, Wallace AKA “W-2”, a rapper who wants to branch off into to producing movies, & an unnamed cosmonaut coming back from a mission on Jupiter. What begins to develop is an eerie tale of other-wordly forces and how they connect our three characters.

Ales Kot writes the script of this unique story. The dialogue and narration in the story is really well done. Nothing feels stale, and character interaction feels very natural. There is quite a bit of development in this opening issue and you can see how each character in the series works and how they handle the harrowing things that happen to them later in the book. There is also an air of mystery in the story that is handled well by the narration boxes.

Morgan Jeske illustrates the story. The art has a sort of gritty realism to it. Most likely appealing to a certain kind of audience, but that is a bit of a problem. There is little leeway with this style, you either like it, or you don’t. Personally it’s not my cup of earl grey, but it doesn’t distract too much from the story itself. But while the designs of the characters and environments don’t cause much problems, some panel juxtaposition and how certain things are scaled do. Near the end of the issue, the panels are hard to follow, different things are happening at the same time, and while I’m sure it is supposed to go along with the chaotic situations that W-2 and Sonia are in, it comes off as a bit jarring to look at.

Change is definitely a book that blends the art in the story together to create it’s atmosphere, while it does the story part well, the art leaves a bit to be desired. Regardless, the first of this mini-series is a relatively solid one and I recommend it.

3.5/5