THE FIELD #1
A gun wielding, cocaine snorting, ex-bible salesman, with an undiagnosed mood disorder holds an amnesia stricken half-naked man hostage, all while on the run from a bunch of angry bikers? COUNT ME IN! Or at least that’s what I thought until I opened the book.
Simon (Prophet) Roy’s art alone makes the whole book feel like it was drawn in the course of one drunken evening. There’s even a (dream sequence/flashback?) scene where a bunch of scientists are working in what looks like a lab made of rocks. Or a cave? I just can’t tell. Someone give Roy a ruler, this book needs a few straight lines. Roy’s line work does not do Simon Gough’s awesome color work justice however. The highlights, shadows, and light sources really make these napkin scribbles feel three-dimensional.
Meanwhile, Ed (Secret Avengers) Brisson’s story in this premiere issue doesn’t get me invested in any of the characters. Am I rooting for the bipolar maniac who avoids profanity at all costs, but doesn’t hesitate to kill an entire diner full of innocent people? Or the scrawny kid who doesn’t seem to realize he’s hanging out with a psychopath? Or maybe the bikers? By the way, the ex-bible salesman’s name is Christian. Get it? Because he’s an ex-bible salesman?
So clever.
Or is it “Christan”? I ask because the first time his name is mentioned in the diner scene they either misspelled it, or, I don’t know, maybe tried giving the waitress an accent? Either way, it looks like a typo, which for a published comic book to have a typo in it’s first issue — on the first time the main character’s name is mentioned no less — is pretty ridiculous. And speaking of the diner scene, which serves as the only interesting scene in the comic, what the fuck? Was he trying to prove a point? All he says afterward is “None of this — none of it matters . . . as long as we’re a team, none of this matters one fudging bit.” Was that supposed to clarify anything? Because now I’m more confused than the kid with the amnesia. Since when are they a team?
This book left me with more questions than interest in answers. Good luck to the scrawny kid stuck with the psychopathic Hank Hill, because this is one story I’m not jumping on, ah tell h’ya what.
