Start Again issue 1.
Written and created by Jamie Me.
Art by Toni Doya.
Colours by Sean Callahan.
Available through Vault29. £3.50. Full Colour.
The Story - ‘Start Again is a superhero boy meets girl comic set in the United Kingdom. It follows a chance encounter between Ajay Verna and Natalie Brown in a nightclub in Leeds city centre. You know how it goes. Boy meets girl, girl likes boy, but boy is a superhero and didn’t tell girl, so there is that...
It deals with themes such as anxiety, online abuse and the cost of fame. The story itself is inspired by some of the authors experiences!’
The Review - First off, I really liked this comic. I read it without a clue what it was about and found it to be a funny story about a superhero finding and possibly losing love. It has some great looking and realistic style art that flows exceedingly nicely and carries all the action and facial acting that the writer seemingly needed. It is a solid and well made superhero tale with a modern twist on the genre. It also has some exceptionally presented scenes of ‘adult entertainment’.
Start Again 1 is done in the tradition of all good first issues. It pulls you through a solid set up, moments of surprise and sets it up all nicely for a longer run with a little surprise at the end. The characters are likeable when required to be and talk in natural and familiar modern language. Toni Dora was a cracking choice for artist and gives the characters individuality and Leeds (yes, our own Thoughtbubble hosting Leeds) a sense of scale. I rarely double dip on small press issues but will be looking for a physical copy later this week.
I found it really refreshing that the aforementioned themes of anxiety and online abuse weren’t used too heavily. Every month at the moment we seem to get some heavy handed, too on the nose and woe is me comic about anxiety. This first issue makes use of a solid story footing and realistically rendered (albeit super-powered) people to talk about the subject. In a post modern twist it reminds me of what Stan and Co were doing with Spider-Man and The X-Men all those decades ago. Real and genuinely felt emotional depth and not greeting card slogans or depressing diary notations.
I really hope that the second issue is hot on the heels of the first as this sort of story needs that regular pacing through a monthly schedule. The cover to the second issue looks cracking and can be seen in the end credits.
As an aside I would note that the first issue cover seems well formatted but fails a little to represent the interiors - but to be fair us comics fans are rather used to that?
Published by Vault29 and available at www.vault29.co.uk
Follow the writer Jamie Me at www.comicbookhour.com or on Twitter @JamieMeWrites
Toni Doya is a Spanish artist and who brilliantly cannot be found on Twitter.
Sean Callahan can be found at www.callahancolor.deviantart.com and on Twitter @CallahanColors
Many thanks for reading.
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