phantom road comic review

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‘phantom road’ #1 review: big rigs and bloodbaths.

Phantom Road has the potential to be one of Lemire’s most ambitious horror stories.

Jeff Lemire is a fascinating writer to me. He has his hand in several different parts of the comic industry, and while he has an expansive career with superheroes and supervillains, he still has an important place in the independent side of things. More specifically, he’s known for writing stories such as Black Hammer , Gideon Falls , and many more extravagant stories with the artistic power of some of the best artists to date. It was a delight to see that Lemire had returned to the indie world with Sentient ’s Gabriel H. Walta for the new grindhouse horror series Phantom Road , published by Image Comics. For a debut issue, Lemire and Walta aren’t afraid to lean into the grotesqueness of Phantom Road ’s mysterious story, but whether or not they nailed the horror is up for debate.

SPOILERS AHEAD for Phantom Road #1!

Image Comics

In Phantom Road #1, we meet a truck driver named Dom who has his world thrown upside down upon meeting Birdie, a woman who was in a nasty car crash along the interstate. He soon finds himself tied to a strange artifact that Birdie’s drawn to, throwing them into a place that almost appears like a sort of Limbo to the newly acquainted strangers. As expected from Walta, he knocks it out of the park, and the great art mixed in with Jordie Bellarie’s beautiful colors allows the readers to step inside of the world of Dom and see what he sees.

The beauty held within the stunning Walta/Bellarie duo is that the smallest details put on the page suck you into the world at hand. As someone who loves their time with  Doctor Strange , reading the book felt just like being back in the glory days of Stephen Strange running an illegal vet in New York City. Lemire’s scripting also gives the two plenty to play with in terms of the dry midnight setting we see throughout the first issue. The diner Dom enters, the bathroom, and the simple moments of him driving out on the road all feel like the times when you find yourself driving in the middle of the night. 

Lemire’s pacing is a lot slower than usual in Phantom Road , which both benefits and hinders the story all at the same time. We live through the story in Dom’s shoes. He’s going through his nightly drive to North Dakota and we are brought to a slow mystery, but it’s a mystery that won’t appease those looking for a quick answer to the matter at hand. Nothing entirely wrong with the slow pacing but as expressed, it’s a blessing and a curse for Phantom Road . 

Phantom Road  has the potential to be one of Lemire’s most ambitious horror stories. The story establishes two people trapped in an unusual realm of some kind. They’re alone. Alone with some strange artifact that they can’t understand. Dom surely isn’t going back home to North Dakota and Birdie’s place in all of this remains a mystery that we’ll find out soon enough. 

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Phantom Road #1 Review

Writer: Jeff Lemire

Artist: gabriel h. walta, colorist: jordie bellaire, letterer: steve wands, cover artists: gabriel h. walta; jeff lemire; javier fernandez; andrea sorrentino; & christian ward, publisher: image comics , price: $3.99, release date: march 1, 2023.

We see them on our streets. They line our highways. They transport goods to stores, warehouses, and storage depots. They are the most visible of our neighbors. Yet do we ever wonder what strange situations long-haul truckers might encounter? Let’s climb aboard Phantom Road #1  and find out!

If you’re interested in this comic , series , related trades , or any of the others mentioned, then simply click on the title/link to snag a copy through Amazon as you read the Phantom Road #1 Review .

He drives through the night with only his radio for company. He sees only a lined strip of asphalt and his reflection on the windshield. When he pulls into a truck stop, those he meets seem more like ghosts: they inhabit the present but only look toward the future. There is only his delivery and a short reprieve before the next endurance test begins. We don’t learn his name until halfway through Phantom Road #1 . Dom tries to help a frightened woman. She points to a strange object in the road near a dead body and her overturned car. When he touches it, everything changes. The minimal dialogue and familiar storyline drew me in. A flashback gave insight into Dom’s past. He’s no Snowman from Smokey And The Bandit. Nor does he have much to look forward to, unlike Lincoln Hawk in Over The Top. Yet I felt I knew him. While the woman remains a stranger, I can understand the fear that threatens to overwhelm her.

The gauges on Dom’s dashboard may not form perfect circles. The interior of his cabin looks scribbled. Darkened areas of the road are lined or blacked out. The truck stop waitress wears a blank expression. A drug pusher’s features are squiggly lines. A fellow trucker looks carved from clay. Walta’s hand-drawn art ushers us into Phantom Road #1 and keeps us turning the pages. The most vibrant scenes are when Dom enters the Truck stop café and the one-page flashback. As for the rest, Jordie Bellaire’s minimal coloring matches the blandness of Dom’s life. Yet the strange events in the second half, in which Dom’s life changes—perhaps forever—offer even less color. Harsh lighting bleaches the barren plain, a radical change from the nighttime Dom so recently inhabited.

The computer-designed dialogue balloons merge uneasily with Walta’s squiggles and lines. Yet the uppercase lettering makes for easy reading. Italicized and bold words suggest intonation. Words fade for lowered voices. Squiggly yellow notes overlay one man’s white dialogue balloons as he sings the tune locked in his head. Radio messages get relayed through starbursts. Computer-generated sound effects in the first half give way to hand-drawn ones in the second. It’s an intriguing mix that never slows or halts us on this long, strange journey.

Final Thoughts

Phantom Road #1 ‘s familiar premise, identifiable characters, and fast-moving story caught me in its draft and carried me along. It evokes The Twilight Zone and The Walking Dead. Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream also comes to mind. As a passenger on this strange journey, I wonder where the series will take me next.

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Phantom Road #1 Advance Review

My journey in diving into other comic books outside of DC Comics and Marvel continues. This includes exploring comic books outside the superhero genre. The newest Image Comics series, Phantom Road by Jeff Lemire, Gabriel Walta, and Jordie Bellaire, is one that caught my eye. The preview for Phantom Road #1 caught my interest as something completely different from the comic books I’m reading. Now I got a chance to check out an advance copy of the first issue. Find out how it turned out with my review of Phantom Road #1.

CREATIVE TEAM

Writer: Jeff Lemire

Artist: Gabriel H. Walta

Colorist: Jordie Bellaire

Letterer: Steve Wands

Phantom Road #1 delivers exactly what I was looking for from what I thought this series would be based on the preview. Jeff Lemire, Gabriel Walta, and Jordie Bellaire establish a tone of unknown with what the story or setting will be about. That sense of loss with the environment is where Phantom Road #1 excels.

Starting out with one of our leads, Dom, going about his work as a long haul trucker does set things up as this just being a normal world. You aren’t led to believe there is going to be some strange trip that you are about to experience as a reader. Lemire, Walta, and Bellaire get you into this mindset with the way Dom interacts with everyone he meets.

This leads to a look into who Dom is that portrays him as not the typical protagonist. How his job as a long haul trucker works into his home life does not paint him in a great light. Lemire’s writing along with Walta and Bellaire’s artwork creates discomfort with this scene between Dom and others in his life. That discomfort further gets you engrained into the world that has people just living out their daily lives.

In doing so when the story in Phantom Road #1 does flip when Dom meets Birdie by happenstance it is as jarring to you as the reader as it is to Dom and Birdie. That flip shows how the story got you bought into what happened before the story took this direction. In the process the horror elements that are brought into play work even better to create an aura of unease with what happens with Dom and Birdie.

As great as Lemire is at writing all of the characters Walta’s artwork, along with Bellaire’s coloring, is what brings Phantom Road #1 to life. Admittedly the art style isn’t one that I normally get into but works for the direction this series is taking. Walta and Bellaire capture the tone that Lemire is going for with each scene in which Dom, Birdie, and the other characters are involved. The shift in tone helps get over how crazy things get by the end of this first issue.

FINAL THOUGHTS

From where it starts to how it ends Jeff Lemire, Gabriel Walta, and Jordie Bellaire create a comic book you get lost in with Phantom Road #1. If you’re a fan of supernatural horror this is a comic book you don’t want to miss picking up.

Story Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

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ADVANCED REVIEW: Image Comics' Phantom Road #1

From Jeff Lemire and Gabriel H. Walta comes a brand-new horror comic, touted as "Mad Max: Fury Road meets The Sandman."

Phantom Road #1

Image Comics is about to release Phantom Road #1, a dark and surreal horror fantasy from the creative team behind TKO Studio's Eisner-winning series Sentient . Written by Jeff Lemire, drawn by Gabriel H. Walta, with colorist Jordie Bellaire and longtime collaborator Steve Wands providing lettering and design expertise, Phantom Road channels a particular strain of Americana that speaks to the grindhouse tradition in fresh and inventive ways, adding its own supernatural spin.

After Phantom Road #1 starts with a tense cold open that teases what is to come, Lemire and Walta dive into the life of Dom, a long-haul truck driver on a midnight run. Stuck in a rut and haunted by his troubled past, Dom comes across a car wreck with a single survivor -- Birdie. When Dom tries to investigate whatever she swerved to avoid, they are transported to a bizarre new world filled with unknown danger.

Lemire's writing is consistently strong, using Phantom Road #1 to provide a masterclass in solid exposition. Lemire does great work efficiently establishing the central characters. Both seem to fit cleanly into classic horror archetypes: Dom is gruff, practical, and scarred by his past, while Birdie is wide-eyed and nervous but not afraid to follow her instincts. Beyond the protagonists and their predictable starting points, the plot is surreal in a way that feels novel and inventive.

Walta's illustration gives Phantom Road #1 a sense of freshness and ingenuity, with a scratchy, stylized feel that gives the impression of an imperfect, thoroughly lived-in world. The depth of texture and dimension imbues both worlds with a harsh, grainy quality that amplifies the horror. The otherworldly monsters that Dom and Birdie encounter after their unexpected transportation are excellently designed. They are just humanoid enough to make all of their warped blankness truly disturbing, and the texture choices made in depicting their blood are fantastically eerie.

RELATED: Sweet Tooth Creator Jeff Lemire Inks Exclusive Deal With Image Comics

Bellaire's colors do great work in Phantom Road #1, constantly oscillating between dark, gritty tones and rich pops of color that accentuate the stark immediacy of the real world. This pallet stands in powerful contrast to the phantom world that Dom and Birdie find themselves in later in the comic, which is muted, unsaturated, and pale. The juxtaposition between the two halves of the comic wouldn't be nearly as impactful without Bellaire's incredible color, bridged by a stunning full-page spread composed of electrifying neon. Wands' letters have a uniquely solid feel, and the added emboldening and italics add excellent cadence and emphasis to the dialogue. The sound effects are well-executed, with lots of variation and effective onomatopoeia.

Phantom Road #1 presents a strong opening salvo for the series that will leave readers eager to delve deeper into its mysteries. Although the characters need to develop past their archetypical states, the quality of Lemire's writing indicates that they can do so in exciting and unexpected ways. It will be interesting to see how the enigmatic and elusive tone evolves as Dom and Birdie uncover more of their strange new world and the comic expands its lore and narrative.

Culture doesn't fit in a box. Neither do we.

REVIEW: Phantom Road #1 Hits the Highway with a Well-Paced Start

The American open road is haunted. We know this. Jeff Lemire and Gabriel H. Walta know this too. If you’ve spent any time on a highway late at night in the states, when the lamps and the headlights start to burn, you can’t help but feel something is with you out there. And it’s not just the other folks in the cars keeping you company, but that uncanny feeling that many others have passed this way and left some tangible mark. Lemire and Walta’s ongoing series Phantom Road takes up the challenge of crafting a new and fresh American road story that captures that chill of life of the night road, and so far, they’re off to a strong start.

Phantom Road #1

Jordie Bellaire (Colorist), Jeff Lemire (Writer), Gabriel H. Walta (Artist), Steve Wands (Letterer/Designer) Image Comics March 1, 2023

The story focuses on an American trucker, Dom, who’s hauling on a job one night when he stops to help Birdie, a young woman who’s just been in a car accident. The cause of the crash is a mysterious object sticking out of the road. Birdie is incoherent, trying to explain what she’s seen, but she’s cut off when Dom touches the object and out blasts a green glow. What happens next  sends them on a journey to find answers and stay alive.

Phantom Road #1 features solid pacing that does well in setting up the status quo of Dom’s life as a trucker before plunging us straight into the dread and surreality of what he and Birdie encounter. The issue shows just enough of the antagonists to feel like a satisfying set-up but shrouds them in mystery, leaving room for future installments to expand.

In his newsletter, Lemire compares Phantom Road to Mad Max: Fury Road and The Sandman . While the bloody-crowbar action stays grounded in what the comic’s press release describes as a “ grindhouse ” style, the looming threat promises a more fantastical twist.

Lemire’s authorial direction , paired with Walta’s wiry art , builds texture for the truck driver’s world. Simple interactions with others at a gas station set up a lived-in reality for Dom, one that will soon be shattered by an inexplicable occurrence. Walta repeatedly employs a visual trick where it looks like Dom’s reflection (and for a moment, that of his son’s) in the glass is actually a phantom appearing in front of him on the road, adding a layer of meaning to the comic’s title.

Bellaire’s coloring paints the contrasts between the beige roadside landscape of daytime with the pulp-red brake-light night. The green glow the object emits cuts cleanly through this familiar color palette, alerting us that this thing–whatever it is–will not leave Dom and Birdie’s world the same way it was before.

It’s hard to write about this issue without spoiling too much, especially since the showdown with the issue’s main conflict takes up nearly half the page count. Lemire and Walta aren’t afraid to get into the moment-by-moment details of the struggle to layer the visual grit. Even at its length, the action sequence feels well-paced and immersive.

For fans of horror and Americana fiction, Phantom Road is one to watch this year. It showcases a steady control of narrative timing and keen eyes for visual focus and color. While there are not too many clear clues in this first issue about what specific direction the story might take, I’m looking forward to following where it goes.

Bishop V Navarro

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Phantom Road #1: On a Long and Lonesome Highway

• Comic Book Reviews
• Phantom Road #1: On a…

Phantom Road #1

Author(s): Jeff Lemire

Artist(s): Gabriel H. Walta

Colorist(s): Jordie Bellaire

Letterer: Steve Wands

Publisher: Image

Genre: Horror, Supernatural, Thriller

Published Date: 03/01/2023

By  Dustin Gebel

Dom is a long-haul truck driver attempting to stay ahead of his tragic past. When he stops one night to assist Birdie, who has been in a massive car crash, they pull an artifact from the wreckage that throws their lives into fifth gear. Suddenly, a typical midnight run has become a frantic journey through a surreal world where Dom and Birdie find themselves the quarry of strange and impossible monsters.

Phantom Road #1 – written by Jeff Lemire with art from Gabriel H. Walta, colors by Jordie Bellaire, and letters and design work from Steve Wands – follows Dom, a long haul trucker estranged from his family, as he finds himself trapped in a new, barren world filled with ghoulish monsters. The first issue can be split into two sections, Dom’s ordinary world of trucking which is filled with long lonely nights and brief but odd moments of connections in rest stops and diners. 

The second half occurs when Dom comes across a nasty car wreck and a woman in shock, with a strange artifact embedded in the road. Dom makes contact with it, and the duo is transported somewhere else, a barren void of a desert filled with nothing by mummified-looking bodies that litter the space. Dom is attacked by one of these creatures and is forced to beat it to death(?) before a time shift occurs. Dom and the woman are left wondering about their next steps, surrounded by a pile of creature corpses and a stained crowbar. 

Lemiere’s script is heavy on mood and set up in the best possible way, utilizing repetition and a formalist structure to play on the monotony of truck driving. The long stretches of silence, with only the briefest of interjections from the radio, are familiar to anyone who’s spent nights with nothing but empty stretches of highway and found themselves drifting. Lemire’s scripting is sparse, showing a massive amount of restraint in letting the art speak for itself in those panels. There are no running narrative or caption boxes, which only heightens the sinking silence of the road. 

That choice to forgo a running voice comes into play when Lemire shifts in time, which also works as a method to build tension and flesh out Dom’s character with a deft hand. As Dom stares into his reflection in the windshield, studying himself by the nature of his profession, the image shifts to that of his son. Lemire then takes the audience back to the start of Dom’s run, plopping them into an argument between the trucker and his wife. Underneath the dining room table, the young son hides with his collection of car toys, the scene playing out with almost no peek at the parent’s faces.

Wands’s lettering gets the chance to shine at this moment, working with Lemire’s dialogue to convey emotion while the subjects of the panels are toy cars and feet. The flashback begins to inform Dom’s instances of solitude. It also colors the fleeting moments of interaction in the issue, playing on the duality of these long-haul truckers. In the scene with Dom and the waitress, it’s like a switch has been flipped, and Dom is rather charming, sharing a sense of comradery with the woman that is lacking back home. 

Walta’s art is a perfect match for the sparse storytelling and tone that Lemire has set out to tell. The art style plays with the ragged, melancholy world of truckers, and knows how to illustrate the repetitive nature of career and lifestyle. The recurring use of Dom’s reflections in his big rig’s front windshield is an excellent symbol of the loneliness and introspective nature of these runs. Even as the reflection lacks some detail in Dom’s actual face, it becomes an excellent motif that informs the later half of the book, once Dom and the woman find themselves in the new location. 

When Dom encounters the creatures, the things have a humanoid shape but are lacking in sharp detail, something that Walta plays up. Rather than appear as people, these creatures bear a passing resemblance to the remains of people encased in lava from Pompei. Like afterimages preserved in limited detail. As Dom comes face to face with one of these creatures, Walta employs a wide panel with two smaller ones, utilizing a flow of wide, close-up, reactions to contrast Dom and the creature. The first close-up is of the creature, with its sunken, smoothed-down features. It then shifts to Dom, with his scratchy beard and shocked expression. Even as the creature attacks, its anatomy feels off (in an interesting way), conveying the otherworldly threat these creatures exude. 

The sense of contrast in the issue is just as evident in Bellaire’s coloring, working with the art to reinforce both the mundanity and sparseness of both worlds. In the world of the truckers, color is muted by the long stretches of black, the only real pops coming from the singing man’s Hawaiian shirt or the reds of the wrecked car’s tail lights. The artifact found at that wreckage site serves almost like an axis for the book’s color palette, releasing a bright, acidic green burst of energy that transports Dom and the woman into a new world and palette. Gone are the bright flashes of coloring illuminating dark stretches of road. Now, Belaire provides a muted, sepia tone for this new world. It’s almost as if a layer of dry dirt and dust has settled on the pages, and gives a sense of the ethereal to this desert locale. 

Final Thoughts

Phantom Road #1 is a lonely, haunting read that cuts through its genre conventions to tell the beginning filled with emotional complexity and flashes of ruthless action. From its cold open utilizing an almost comic strip format to the long stretches of darkened highways and then endless expanses of desert, the writing, art, and colors all speak to a stripped-down but enthralling tale of lost souls. Fans of quieter stories with plenty of introspection and monstrosities will love this issue, which plays into the strengths of Lemire, Walta, Bellaire, and Wands. 

• Writing - 10/10 10/10
• Storyline - 10/10 10/10
• Art - 10/10 10/10
• Color - 10/10 10/10
• Cover Art - 9/10 9/10

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Author:  Dustin Gebel

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Review: Phantom Road #1

Dom is a long haul truck driver, following in his Dad’s footsteps in some ways, whilst also trying to not do some of the more unsavoury elements of his childhood, brought up on arguing parents the odd times that they were actually together.  On one long trip, along a deserted highway, an overturned car with one survivor leads Dom and his rescued not yet travelling companion straight into a meeting, then a confrontation all in a new and surreal world

Jeff Lemire is a writer /creator who has worked for the Big Two along with a host of indie companies.  Probably most recognised for his excellent Hawkeye runs along his Black Hammer work which harks back to a simpler time.  He also has a penchant for horror tinged books.  This then falls squarely in to the latter category.  Lemire’s “hero” is a flawed characters, pretty much as we all are.  Dom is just trying to get through his life, one long haul after the other, whilst no succumbing to the failures of his Dad.  Lemire sets up the horror element well, utilising an immediate shock event to unbalance Dom before ramping up the tension.  The dialogue, which is sparse and indirect in that kind of small talk” manner that we use every day, demonstrating some smart observations.  I have no idea how Shane MacGowan and the Popes fit into proceedings, yet.

Gabriel H. Walta provides the art for the book.  Having worked on Hellboy and the B.P.R.D, Walta brings a darkness more than existence to the art.  The lines are heavy in a way that help distinguish the characters from the various, very well detailed backgrounds.  It is these backgrounds that help establish the unnerving surrealism of the locale that Dom and his rescuer find themselves in.  How can you go from memories and dinner stops to dark desert highways and desolate, barren road of somewhere else-ville, without being unsettled to say the least.  Walta is helped out immensely by the colors and almost devoid of colors from the always excellent Jordie Bellaire.  Bellaire’s work here is detailed and expressive, making the expansive elements later in the book contrasting to say the least.  Steve Wands rounds off the team with a lettering scheme that conveys the emotion of the characters regardless of the, at times, infrequent use of dialogue and interaction.

With shades of Hotel California ringing in my ears after reading this book, I am intrigued to see where Lemire “keeps on trucking” will drive the character forward.  Is it just survival or is there something  else in play down the line?  I wonder what Dom would give for Optimus prime right about now?

Writing – 5 Stars Art – 4 Stars Colors – 5 Stars

Overall – 4.5 Stars

Written by; Jeff Lemire Art by; Gabriel H. Walta Colors by; Jordie Bellaire Letters by; Steve Wands Published by; Image Comics

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Comic Review: Phantom Road Vol. 1 (Image Comics)

Image Comics brings you a dark fantasy graphic novel about a survival of the fittest between a man and some monsters in Phantom Road volume 1. So I’m here again reviewing some horror comics because this month is Spooky season. I reviewed some because I like seeing some horror shit as well as violence and gore. This comic however takes place on a road in the middle of nowhere. You might think that this is like The Walking Dead, Courage the Cowardly Dog, or any other series that has a plot about some road to travel. But no, this comic goes to another level of survival of the fittest while you’re on the road. The comic is written by Jeff Lemire and illustrated by Gabriel H. Walta, Jeff is a Canadian comic book writer, artist, and TV producer who has created acclaimed titles such as Essex County Trilogy, Sweet Tooth, and The Nobody. Speaking of Sweet Tooth, it was also adapted as a Netflix live-action in 2021, I do remember the live-action, and it was really exciting and eerie, and I really liked it. Gabriel is a comic book artist who illustrated several titles including Hellboy, Vision and so as Phantom Road. According to his bio, he dedicated himself to children’s illustration and painting after getting his Master of Fine Arts degree, but then he decided to make comics starting with the publisher IDW, after he received the Spanish Injuve award in 2002.

The front cover of the comic is just very plain. And there’s not much to explain here, because there’s one man holding a bloody crowbar, and on the right, you see those monsters that almost looked like the ReDeads from Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time without the faces. I don’t know what’s more to explain, but the background almost looks like a desolate wasteland, and that is the fact that the whole world is completely destroyed in another time. How do I know that? I don’t know it just happens to look like that whenever a big hurricane brewed. I’m just kidding, I haven’t gone through the story yet. I love the quote from Multiversity Comics who wrote “An Incredibly effective visual comic that maserfully creates tone and tension with color saturation and harsh lightning. It’s a road you want to travel down.” It’s true though because imagine if you’re on the road and you see a gorgeous landscape in the countryside, but somehow when a storm goes by the atmosphere changes and somehow it makes you think that you want to make a painting out of it, believe me, I was there traveling on the road with my car in South America a few years ago.

The story is about a trucker who is driving at night, he stops at a gas station to fill up his truck. But then he meets some people who look like zombies by making their faces as if they had never slept. And then back on the road making a long trip to North Dakota for deliveries, he discovered a car accident in the middle of the road which made him turn his truck to the other side. What’s so weird about it is that the woman who is driving the car saw some strange skeleton appear on the road, however, the main character can see it too, once he touches it, it immediately triggers some shit and transported them to another world where everything is destroyed. They saw someone out there and it was some monster trying to kill them, not just one a dozen of those came out of nowhere, and they killed every single one of them.

This is where it gets so random because the story is all about smoke and mirrors. There’s this scene where the main characters enter a fast food restaurant at a gas station, and the female character sees a place where people are still alive and well at night, when she goes outside, all of that isn’t real, she sees that as an illusion. Then they met some creepy dude who was in the bathroom on the first few pages, he explained about what kind of world it is, and it turns out that they’re in another world where everything is destroyed. It’s like a wormhole that creates a tunnel between two distant points in the universe that cuts the travel time from one point to another. The restaurant for example is exactly a wormhole because once she got out after the explanation it got looped to a normal world. I don’t know what kind of logic is this, but this is a really interesting plot. This is really self-explanatory to say that a piece of rock is doing all the work to transport humans to another world where you get attacked by some monsters. I really don’t know what to say, but this is some crazy shit to be called a fantasy, horror comic that I’m reading, and I love it.

I can’t expect any more of the story because that whole wormhole loop thing is just insane. Some say that this is a fantasy genre book, but it also combines with some sci-fi fantasy vibes here. I must say it’s really extraordinary of a storytelling about humans who got involved in another world where they got attacked by some zombies in broad daylight. You don’t see a lot of comics that involve an empty world with monsters around. This comic takes a lot of inspiration from The Walking Dead because most of the scenes are people running away from zombies just like every other horror movie, but this one is just another place where everything is about to kill you. Ok, the art style of Gabriel is really cool, and to be certain I’ve seen a lot of comic artists who started coloring their comics with watercolor lately, including the scene where the two main characters are in another world. The character designs are pretty good, and how they interact is just amazing, and what I really love is how the characters express themselves so differently because no matter how I look at the characters’ faces it makes it very expressional like how they are scared shitless, how they react and sometimes how these characters looked so strange, like the guy with the Hawaiian shirt who explained about what’s happening. The comic is really interesting and horrifying at the same time with a lot of elements to come by. If you rather want to read a comic about a link between two worlds where everything is alive or dead, then this is for you.

By Kevin Bermeo

I'm a New Yorker Artist, and I traveled a lot. I enjoy making comics, illustrations, paintings, and digital art. Besides drawing, I'm also a writer, I used to be a Gamer, and I love adventures, food, and dragons.

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Phantom Road #8

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Still in a state of shock after their strange encounter, Dom and Birdie look to the mysterious man known as "Hawaii" to answer their questions. But are they getting information from him that they can trust? Or is Hawaii manipulating the entire lethal situation?

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[comic review] shadow roads (fcbd 2018).

March 19, 2019       Erica Robyn       7 Comments

I snagged a copy of Shadow Roads at Free Comic Book Day 2018. I’m totally embarrassed at how long it took me to finally be able to give it a read!

Shadow Roads is a story that is set in the world that remains after the conclusion of The Sixth Gun series. I haven’t yet read that series, but I definitely want to now!

Shadow Roads (FCBD 2018) by Cullen Bunn (Author), Brian Hurtt (Author), A.C. Zamudio (Illustrator), & Carlos Zamudio (Illustrator)

The story jumps right in with two characters at a museum. One is having a great time, while the other feels a bit off. Before they leave, a man gives one of the characters a gift and a message.

Next up, we jump to New Mexico Territory where a man is searching for a girl that is talented with a pistol.

The two story lines jump back and forth throughout the short comic, where we dive a bit deeper into the plots for each.

Of course, the comic ends just when things are getting really interesting! But as a quick glimpse, I thought this was perfect!

The artwork was also really awesome! I love the color schemes. It was especially interesting that the scenes in London were quite different from the orange and brown tones of the scenes in New Mexico. And of course, I’m a total sucker for the darker panels! One character that pops into the story, Ms Abigail Redmayne, looks SWEET. I can’t wait to learn more about her!

My Final Thoughts on Shadow Roads (FCBD 2018)

This quick glimpse totally got me hooked! I definitely need to try to get my hands on the first full volume when it comes out on June 18, 2019!

Thanks for reading! Have you read anything from this series yet? If so, would you recommend it?

Reader Interactions

March 19, 2019 at 8:04 am

I haven’t heard of this series, but I’m glad this little glimpse has you intrigued to read more!

March 19, 2019 at 4:45 pm

😀 I can’t wait to dive into the full volume!

March 19, 2019 at 8:21 am

That cover definitely grabs your attention!

March 23, 2019 at 1:34 am

I love when you get awesome artwork and a good storyline too. I have started to read more comics so I am going to have to try this at some point!

March 23, 2019 at 1:07 pm

Right!? Me too! And yes!! I hope you enjoy it!

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Ridley Road

320 pages, Hardcover

First published December 11, 2014

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Ridley Road review – fascism thriller resonates in our current dark age

Based on Jo Bloom’s novel, Sarah Solemani’s drama tells the story of amateur spies infiltrating neo-Nazis in 60s London. Despite some cartoonish moments, it is highly disturbing

A sunlit bedroom in a country house in Kent, 1962. An adorable moppet is helping a young blond woman make the bed. They are joined by the dapper man of the house. They gather in front of the window and smilingly give a Nazi salute.

So begins Ridley Road (BBC One), the four-part adaptation by Sarah Solemani of Jo Bloom’s 2014 novel of the same name. It is an arresting opening, made even more so by the fact that the story about to unfold, we are told, was inspired by true events.

The true part is the rise of neo-fascism in 60s England, when the dismal rags of Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement, and the version of the British National party that would become the National Front, were supplemented by the National Socialist Movement led by a man called Colin Jordan. It is he – played by Rory Kinnear – who we see sieg-heiling in the sunshine.

The drama is named after the road that housed the headquarters of the coalition of Jewish men known as the 62 Group who took direct militant action against the NSM in particular. Their most famous confrontation was in Trafalgar Square in 1962, when Jordan – protected by the Free Speech Act – held an antisemitic rally where a riot broke out between attenders and protesters.

Ridley Road unfolds from the perspective of the blond woman we see in the opening, the fictional Vivien Epstein. Epstein (Agnes O’Casey, giving not a sign that this is her first television role) moves from her loving but claustrophobic home in Manchester, where she lives with her parents, to swinging London in search of ex-boyfriend Jack Morris (Tom Varey).

Morris, it turns out, is embedded in the NSM as a spy for a covert group of Jewish anti-fascist activists led by Epstein’s uncle Soly (Eddie Marsan), who is ably supported by his formidable wife Nancy (the estimable Tracy-Ann Oberman, who has herself braved relentless and public anti-Semitic abuse in recent years, bringing another and even more immediate layer of relevance to the story). After taking part in an NSM arson attack on a yeshiva during which a student is killed, Morris disappears, leading Epstein to charm her way into Colin Jordan’s good graces to find out whether Morris has been unmasked, injured or killed.

Injured only! From there it is only a short leap to Epstein becoming embedded herself and working with Jack to avert further NSM attacks (including plans to disrupt the yeshiva boy’s funeral – there is a heartbreaking shot of a Jewish man having to hide behind the headstone of the grave he is visiting when they are directed to the wrong cemetery). The group gathers intelligence on Jordan’s plans and the “paramilitary force” he is training in the country house lent to him by a sympathetic aristocrat.

Though the main thrust of the story is the amateur espionage and the increasing involvement of Epstein in Jordan’s world, it is in the quieter, more domestic moments that the drama is most convincing. The ghostlike presence of the Epsteins’ relative, Roza (Julia Krynke), a survivor of the Holocaust scoured out by grief and suffering, abrades the conscience of Vivien’s mother, Liza (Samantha Spiro, who excels at nervy, inarticulately stricken characters and is well deployed here). Not appreciating how much danger they were in, she refused Roza’s family a place to stay when they were fleeing the Nazis, and her guilt fills the house as it must have done so many.

Elsewhere, the fertile ground in which the seeds of antisemitism and assorted other bigotries flourish is well evoked. We see the comfort that Epstein’s aged London landlady, Nettie (Rita Tushingham), finds in the local community leader, Gary Burns (Nigel Betts), and his explanations as to why the world is changing so rapidly around her. You’ll never guess whose fault it is.

The London parts, however, have a much broader-brush feel to them. The romance element – complete with potential rival in the form of Stevie (Gabriel Akuwudike), who currently has Vivien down as a secret fascist but, one suspects, will have the scales fall from his eyes before the credits on the third episode roll – feels awkward and unconvincing. The direction feels strangely stilted and the dialogue flimsy, the script never quite first-class. The parts set in the hairdresser’s where Vivien gets a job are almost cartoonish, and the relentless salt-of-the-earthiness of everyone born in the East End becomes quite grating.

Still, even if you might wish it exhibited a bit more complexity and artistic refinement, it is a drama with resonance. It has the right story to tell – alas – in our current dark age.

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