Wish I had thought of this title.
Creative Staff:
Story and Letters: Alex de Campi
Art: Jerry Ordway
Colors: Marissa Louise
What They Say:
Professor Alice Creed doesn’t have tenure. And she never will, as long as she keeps ditching her lectures to kill monsters. But when a dark force from between universes begins seducing young souls through an innocent computer game, she packs her occult relics, holy water, and iPad to kick eldritch ass!
* Collecting two complete arcs from Dark Horse Presents!
* A modern monster slayer from Alex de Campi and Jerry Ordway!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Semiautomagic deserves to be read just for the title alone. It’s kind of a perfect Alex de Campi title: cool, brazen, and very punk rock, which pretty much describes the comic.
Originally published in Dark Horse Presents, Semiautomagic follows Alice Creed, Yale Professor and monster killer. How she became a monster killer is unclear, as this story begins in media res with Alice on the case of a young boy who had his soul stolen by a pirated beta version of a video game. Hundreds of other kids were duped by the same game, and now Alice must travel to New Mexico to try and save them. Her plans don’t go well, as you might imagine, and her actions in the first story arc “The Bomb That Will Bring Us Together” leads straight to the second, “Throne of Blood.”
I don’t really want to go into too much more detail on the plot, as that would ruin the fun for those of you who haven’t read it yet. Although the story isn’t quite as over the top and gratuitous as de Campi’s Grindhouse series, it does possess that spirit. This is a fun, bloody, sometimes grotesque and morose series that catches your attention from the first page and doesn’t let you go until the last. Although it has shades of Hellblazer, Doctor Strange, and Supernatural, it stands on its own and the tantalizing glimpses we get of Alice’s past only make me want to read more.
From what I can tell, Alice and some friends experienced an incident that opened her up to the supernatural realm. She them became something between a magician and a monster hunter, and we get hints that she has special dispensation to hunt these creatures that prey on humanity. Who grants her this dispensation and what form it takes is unclear, but these little peeks we get into her past give a good sense of history to the story and makes an already mysterious and intriguing character even more so.
Jerry Ordway does a great job drawing the grotesque and the creepy. His art and Marissa Louise’s colors bring Alice’s adventures to life and make her world feel rich and dangerous, and boy do they do well with the gross out. There’s one specific scene where one of Alice’s students, Chloe, arrives at her house that made me have to turn away. I won’t say what exactly happened, but you’ll know the scene when you get to it.
They also do some fun things with panels, such as including alchemical and other magical symbols in the gutters, and de Campi always uses letters for interesting effect, such as when the monster she helped create brings her to her lowest point. He mentions specific people whose lives she’s “ruined” and de Campi superimposes their names over Alice’s face in a small panel. It’s a great way of showing us how much these failures weigh on her, and it takes full advantage of the medium.
In Summary:
Semiautomagic is a story right up my alley: full of magic and mayhem, horrible monsters, and mysteries galore all wrapped in a punk rock attitude. This is a story that goes for the jugular, and you’ll love it for it. I really hope we get more adventures of Alice Creed, maybe even a full mini-series by Dark Horse. I think she’s got the legs to be a big character, and I’d really like to delve more deeply into her world. Dr. Josh gives this an….
Grade: A
Age Rating: N/A
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: June 29th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
