Dragonfly & Dragonflyman #1 Free Comic Book Day // Review
AHOY Comics, the relatively new comics publisher (it launched less than a year ago, in June 2018) has had an auspicious start. The titles of their First Wave--The Wrong Earth, Captain Ginger, High Heaven, and Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Terror--have all launched and completed their first seasons. Their first trade paperback, a collection of the first volume of The Wrong Earth, launches this week. Their Second Wave of titles includes writers and artists like Stuart Moore, Mark Waid, Tom Peyer, David Nakayama, and Alberto Ponticelli. And now they’ve released their first Free Comic Book Day sampler.
Dragonfly & Dragonflyman #1, like most AHOY Comics magazines, includes three comics stories and one prose piece. The primary story, which shares its title with the comic itself, is a story from the world(s) of The Wrong Earth, though clearly taking place before that series as the heroes are still safe on their own worlds. Like The Wrong Earth, the story features two astronomically different takes on a Batman-esque superhero--one based heavily on the 1966 Batman TV-series, all upstanding values and pop colors and low stakes; the other in a grim and gritty world of corrupt cops and violent vigilantes. This story switches between two different versions of the hero’s conflict with a criminal called the Tommygunner. Written by Tom Peyer, the writer of The Wrong Earth and the Editor in Chief of AHOY, this story gives the reader a great sense of what to expect from The Wrong Earth. The art, by Russ Braun, is serviceable, though it pales in comparison to regular series artist Jamal Igle, who provides the cover. If you like this story, most LCS’s will be carrying the trade collection of The Wrong Earth, and it’s always good manners to purchase something on FCBD.
The other two comic stories are “Captain Ginger” and “Poe vs. the Black Cat.” “Captain Ginger,” written by Stuart Moore and penciled by June Brigman, with colors by Veronica Gandini and letters by Comicraft’s Jimmy Betancourt, is a flashback vignette from the world of the Captain Ginger series, an interstellar spacecraft manned--er, catted--by the descendants of the original human crew’s housecats. It’s clever enough, and a good example of the type of story in the series it represents. “Poe vs. the Black Cat,” by writer/artist Hunt Emerson, is an almost impenetrable wordless comic about Edgar Allan Poe, a cat, a raven, badminton, and accidental nudity. It was, frankly, incomprehensible. This issue’s prose piece, “When Stars Explode” by AHOY Publisher Hart Seely, is literally just a list of meaningless quotations from celebrity memoirs.
Like most AHOY titles, their FCBD issue features one strong comic story, two other comic stories, and a prose piece. There’s something for everyone, and the best thing about an anthology title is that when something does hit, the reader can shrug and move on to the next feature.
