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‘Ghost Town #2:’ Advance Comic Book Review (Pre-Apocalyptic)

Ghost Town 2

 

Ghost Town 2Terrorists have weaponized a time machine, using it to send a nuclear bomb sometime into the future in the middle of Washington, D.C. As a result, the city is now largely abandoned, with the remaining population depending on government aid and food to continue to stay. The city is now home to gangs and junkies, as well as a few honest people who don’t want to leave their homes behind. This is the sort of environment where a man can make a lot of money, and that man is Nate Lawson. Lawson’s business plan is to go into the most dangerous city in the world and retrieve the things that people had to leave behind.

So, the comic explores the moral ambiguities and power struggles that literature tells us happen in a post-apocalyptic city, but the apocalypse hasn’t happened yet and will most likely be contained to the metro D.C. area, so we are left with an apocalypse-lite, which suddenly brings this comic from the realm of cliché into the realm of doing something that feels totally new. There are honest shops open and ambulance service alongside brutal gangs that murder with impunity and looming death. This is something new and exciting and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Ryan Lindsay’s script explores the struggles of three characters in this issue. Lawson is the mischievous smuggler who has finally landed one big job. Willie, the good Samaritan, drives an ambulance through one of the worst neighborhoods in one of the worst cities in the world. He is a man who is out to prove that the people of D.C. are worth saving, if only to himself. Tyrell is a man astride a small empire. He has risen to the top of a gang that runs the same neighborhood Willie is trying to save. The story uses these three to show how imminent death will change a city, and it does it well.

Daniel Logan’s art and Brian Dyck’s colors bring the city to life. The rough style and thick lines that Logan uses emphasizes the harsh neighborhood and the moral looseness of the inhabitants. Dyck’s colors range from muted and drab to rich and vibrant and help to reinforce and occasionally undermine the tone of the page. The art does a wonderful job of capturing the life of the city as well as the danger that lurks somewhere in the future.

This is a great premise for a comic, and I really enjoyed reading it. This is a fun, new spin on an old (and tired) formula that is familiar enough, without exhaustively retreading the same, old ground. There is always room on my shelf for an inventive comic book, and Ghost Town is definitely that.

Four Silver-Lined Mushroom Clouds out of Five

 

 

Ben Rhodes, Fanbase Press Senior Contributor

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Favorite Book:  Cryptonomicon Favorite Movie:  Young Frankenstein Favorite Absolutely Everything:  Monty Python

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