SuperSearnold - Comic Book Reviews

Greetings from your friendly neighborhood Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld].  Welcome to my comic book review blog - thanks for tuning in.  Today is Tuesday, September 9th, 2008.

Today’s Issue:
Serenity - The Other Half, written by Jim Krueger (Earth X, Avenger/ Invaders) with art by Will Conrad (Freshmen vol. 2, Serenity - Better Days).  Joss Whedon (creator of Serenity) is credited as “Executive Producer” - what that means in terms of his actual involvement with the creative process remains a mystery.  I’m excited about this issue because - just like yesterday’s - it is available for FREE as part of Dark Horse’s Myspace Dark Horse Presents series.  It can be found online HERE:
http://myspace.com/darkhorsepresents?issuenum=13&storynum=1

Premise:
Serenity - The Other Half takes place somewhere between the Firefly TV series and the Serenity motion picture.  For those unfamiliar, Serenity is about a group of space cowboys just trying to get by and make an honest living… well, maybe not an HONEST living.  The crew took on two passengers, Simon and River Tam, who turn out to be wanted by the semi-evil Alliance - the big whig government that rules all of outer space - or at least everything they can get their hands on.  In this comic, we see the crew on a job being attacked by space zombies called Reavers.  River, who is slightly insane, comes through and saves the day.

The Good:
Who doesn’t love space pirates?  Jim Krueger does a great job of capturing these characters and putting together a complete adventure in just 8 pages.  Will Conrad, being the artist used on all the other Serenity comic books, does not have the problem I’ve been running into recently of drawing characters who don’t look the way they do on the big screen.  Mal looks like Nathan Fillion, River looks like Summer Glau, etc.  Well done Will.  Also - just like in Firefly and Serenity - non-stop action and real danger in no way prohibits the use of great humor.

The Bad:
If you’re not familiar with Serenity’s crew already, I highly doubt you’ll care about the adventure in this comic as there is zero introduction to anything.  Also, even though it takes place BEFORE the movie, I think there’s a lot that wouldn’t make much sense unless you’ve already seen the movie.  Of course, being published years after the movie, that’s probably not that big of a deal.

The Noteworthy:
FREE!  I can’t get enough of free entertainment - especially when it’s high quality.  Go read it:
http://myspace.com/darkhorsepresents?issuenum=13&storynum=1

My Recommendation:
Absolutely (you probably saw this coming - I’m not good at hiding my biases.)  You’ll enjoy this comic book if you like Firefly/ Serenity.  If you aren’t familiar with the characters, go buy, rent, or borrow the DVD’s - I’m sure you’ll fall in love with the world and its characters - then you can come back and read the comic.

That’s all for Serenity - The Other Half.  As always, thanks for tuning in - see you next time.
-Searnold