Hi Everyone.
As some of you may know, I like to keep an eye on the monthly sales figures, and I often wonder what some of the low sellers are like. With their unfamiliar titles and seeing no mention of them in general forum browsing, it seems like the best way to find out is to actually buy something. So I did.
The lowest selling comic of August 2013(according to Comichron.com) was Fearless Dawn In Outer Space #1:
I'm not familiar with the character, and didn't do any research into her before reading this issue, just to see if it's new reader friendly. There may be small spoilers, but I'll block them just in case. Let's start with the cover.
Cover:
If this woman in the centre is called Fearless Dawn, then the cover does suit the title, as that does look like outer space. I find the way she's drawn a little odd, as to me it almost looks like she's covering nudity, despite wearing this purple spacesuit.
These little aliens are drawn quite consistently, and in general I think the cover is drawn well, and nicely coloured. This doesn't really represent a scene in the comic, but I suppose that does happen sometimes, and instead this is to give a general idea of the contents.
The villains are more human looking inside, and Dawn doesn't seem to wear that particular costume. Not sure why this is.
Artwork:
The first thing that struck me on opening the comic is that this is in black and white. I don't read many independent comics, but from browsing in shops, I know that this seems to be fairly common for smaller companies. Not a big problem, but a bit of a surprise.
The art is generally pretty good, and suits the tone and story well, changing from cartoon-y to more serious and detailed as the scene requires. I like this approach here, as it flows well from panel to panel, and doesn't feel strange to see. The character posing in some panels is a little too "sexy" for me, but that's just personal tastes I suppose. The art is uncoloured as I said, but it's shaded very nicely, so it's good to look at.
Story/Writing:
As you may have picked up from the cover, it's about Nazis in space, and they're heading to Earth, led by a character called Helga Von Krause,(who appears to be a previous enemy of Dawn, helpfully pointed out in one of those little editors notes that you don't seem to see very often these days.), and Dawn intends to stop them. Not wanting to give away too much, so I'll leave the plot there.
It has a fun kind of feel to it, but isn't like a total comedy comic, and balances the humour and serious points pretty well. It seems like in various forms, Nazis are a bit of a trend lately, which I'm not into, but despite this, I still found it to be a fairly enjoyable read. I don't really know much about who Dawn is or what she does from this, but it doesn't seem to affect how the story goes. Reading previous issues could be useful, but I don't know for sure.
Other Things Worth Mentioning:
The comic has no advertising in it, apart from on the back page, which I like. It's nice to be able to read through a comic without being interrupted by adverts. It has 22 pages of comic content, and is $3.99. I think this is pretty good, as I've heard that comics without advertising often cost more, so it seems to be decent value.
There are a couple of slight inconsistencies in the art, i.e., a space helmet disappearing and re-appearing from panel to panel, but this could be down to it being sort of like a dream sequence. There are a couple of slight spelling mistakes too, but neither of these things bother me much.
There is 7 pages of bonus art at the end, 3 "pin-ups"(I think they're called), and 4 full pages that look kind of like they could be covers. I'm not into pin-ups, but they're drawn well enough, and the other art is good. I like that there's bonus content, as I usually only see that sort of thing in collected editions.
The cover claims this is a one-shot, but ends on a cliffhanger, to be continued in another issue. This probably wouldn't be a problem for a regular reader, but if you want a whole short story in one issue as I thought one-shots should be, this isn't what this is.
Overall:
In general, I liked this issue. It was drawn and written pretty well, and I think I'm interested enough to pick up the follow-up to this. I should probably stick to the 5 star rating system on here, so I think I'll give it 3/5, but it's a strong 3. I think that there will be people out there who will enjoy this, and enjoy it a little more than I did. If you get the chance to get a copy, I'd say it's worth a look.
So has anyone on here read this issue? What did you think of it?
Also, should I make this a monthly thing? I'm new to reviewing, but I'd be quite happy to post a review of next months lowest seller if people are interested in reading what I have to say. Let me know. :)
Scarlotte.
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