WALL-E #3
Written by J. Torres
Art by Morgan Luthi
Colors by Digikore Studios
Letters by Deron Bennett
BOOM! Studios
Release date: February 24, 2010

Some people think bugs and rodents are pests, others think they’re pets. I happen to fall into the latter category, having owned several pet insects and a rather large lab rat named Cornelius. Wall-E #3 tells the story of how everyone’s favourite trash compactor met his pet cockroach and only companion in a terrible trash-filled world.

Much like the Pixar animated movie, Wall-E #3 tells its story with almost no dialogue. This works well on some degree, but the comic suffers due to the lack of movement available to the character. One of the ways WALL-E was able to demonstrate so much emotion in the film without even having a face was through his frantic arm movements. It’s harder in a drawn still shot to demonstrate that same range of emotion.

Despite that, the J. Torres script still carries much of the charm that the original film did. The complicated Rube Goldberg-like traps that WALL-E concocts in an attempt to catch his six-legged friend are hilarious, and you can sense the loneliness of WALL-E through the pages as he attempts to make his first real friend.

FVZA #1-2
Written by David Hine
Conceived by Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson
Illustrated by Roy Allen Martinez
Painted by Kinsun Loh and Jerry Cho
Lettered by Richard Starkings and ComicCrafts’ Jimmy Betancourt
Radical Publishers
Release date: December 2009

Alternate histories are always a fun concept to play with in fiction. Imagining a world where the Axis won WW2 like Philip K. Dick’s Man in a High Castle, or Allan Moore’s and Kevin O’Neill’s Victorian speculative and adventure fiction comics The League of Extraordinary Gentleman are great exercises in creative speculation.

Radical Comics, writer David Hine, and artist Roy Allen Martinez brings forward their own altered world where vampires and zombies are very real, and their presence has permanently altered the history of the human race in FVZA. The FVZA, or the Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency, was assembled to hunt down and destroy the infected. When a working vampire vaccine was discovered in the 1960s, President Kennedy announced that the FVZA was to be disbanded. A former scientist and operative of the FVZA has isolated and trained his granddaughter and grandson to take up the battle if the undead return. When a surviving vampire plans to overthrow the human rule and create the United Vampire States of America, the FVZA is reformed to tackle the emerging menace.

28 Days Later #7
Written by Michael Alan Nelson
Art by Declan Shalvey
Colors by Nick Filardi
Letters by Ed Dukeshire
BOOM! Studios
Release date: February 24, 2010

28 Days Later is one of the movies responsible for the sudden re-emergence of the horror film, so I’m surprised that that it took BOOM! Studios so long to come out with a comic book series set in post-apocalyptic Britain, where a virus that creates an irrational homicidal rage in those who come into contact with the blood of infected has shattered civilization. In 28 Days Later #7 we find the American Clint, his hired guide Serena, and their injured friend Derrick way-laid by an armed group of fellow survivors. Clint is desperate to find medicine for Derrick but the band, led by a frumpy middle-aged woman named Kate, are too concerned with their own survival to assist strangers. Kate informs them that there is a pharmacy in the village near their encampment, and they can find the medicine they need there. Unfortunately, Kate has ulterior motives for sending them into the village.

Many would be surprised to pick up a copy of 28 Days Later and find that there isn’t a single appearance by the Infected, but that’s one of the strengths of the comic. Writer Michael Alan Nelson chooses to use conflict and tension between the surviving humans as the major story driver, teasing us with the possibility of the Infected. Like a good magician, you never use your best trick right away.

Tracker #1
Written by Jonathan Lincoln
Art by Francis Tsai
Letters by Troy Peteri
Design by Phil Smith
Top Cow
Release date: November, 2009

Thanks to a certain popular book and movie series, werewolves have suddenly become the new vampires. Soon, furry and fanged beast men will be saturating the pop culture environment to the point of annoyance. There will be little 12-year-old girls pinning up wildlife posters on their walls, full moon jewelery will become hip, and every movie, book, comic book, concept album, stage play, and mime act that involves werewolves will be instantly greenlit.

Which brings us to Tracker, the new five-part comic book miniseries published by Top Cow. It opens at a grizzly crime scene on a bus, with blood and guts soaking through the seats and splattering the windows. It’s the latest attack by a vicious serial killer named Herod, pursued “˜doggedly’ by Agent Jezebel Kendall and her partner Alex O’Roark. O’Roark is the only survivor of the attack, but he has been covered in scratch-like lacerations that all “˜mysteriously heal.’ He begins to show signs in the hospital of infection from a strange disease and the predictable fur and fangs ensue.

Angelus #1
Written by Ron Marz
Art by Stjepan Sejic
Letters by Troy Peteri
Logo and Book Design by Phil Smith
Top Cow
Release date: December 23, 2009

First of all, I’d like to know why it’s always the same people who get all the super powers. The same girl gets to be TWO superheroes, and I get squat. It’s completely unfair.

Spinning out of Top Cow’s Witchblade, Angelus follows the continuing story of Danielle Baptiste, former police officer and superhero Witchblade, as she relocates from New York to New Orleans. The relocation has more to do with just a change in scenery: she has now become Angelus, warrior of the Eternal Light, and with her new lesbian lover Finch, she is trying to navigate her new path in life. But she may be caught up in something she doesn’t understand. Her angel second in command Sabine plots behind her back and dispatches a team of warriors into the depths of Hell to retrieve a mysterious object.