Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Fragment

by John Lang, with Jeff Sebank

This self-published comic was an impulse buy that I picked up at TCAF.  Lang has just written and drawn a comic about the Canadian WWI pilot Billy Bishop called Lone Hawk, and I thought this comic looked interesting.  I was not disappointed.

In a short amount of space, Lang constructs a pretty detailed vision of the future.  The story is set in 2036, in an America that has been riven once again with civil war and challenged by a new Depression.  Our main character wakes up for his night shift job only to learn that he and all his fellow employees have been laid off.  He makes his way to a bar, where we learn a great deal about the state of the Union from a news broadcast.  We also learn that our hero was involved in some 'Uprising' as a tech runner.

In a lot of ways, it feels like Lang was setting up a much longer series with this comic.  This comic was published in 2006, so it predates many of the financial problems that the comic depicts, which struck much sooner than the forecasted time frame.  If one sees the 'Uprising' as a form of Occupy Wherever, this book looks even more prescient.

Lang drew this comic in a noir-ish, thick lined manner that works very well with the material.  I enjoyed this comic, and I'm glad I picked it up.


No comments: