News From the Fallout #1 // Review
1962. Old Joe’s Restaurant is a cozy, little place 65 miles north of Las Vegas. It was established in 1945, The menu proudly states that it was “never closed.” There are a few people at the counter of Old Joes when a guy walks-in with a gas mask telling everyone that they need to board-up the windows and doors. No one bats an eye. This happens near the end of News From the Fallout #1. Writer Chris Condon opens a new atomic-age horror series with artist Jeffrey Alan Love. It’s thick, moody and incredibly dark. A bit like old footage from an above-ground nuclear testing mixed with something out of the camera of George Romero.
The reaction of the patrons of Old Joe’s bears some explanation. See: Old Joes’s has been in business for decades. It’s been there in the shadow of Atomic Alley since way before nuclear testing started there back in 1951. Of course...they don’t know the full extent of the current danger. They don’t know about General McCoy and his increasingly erratic behavior. They don’t know about his obsession with the porous black rock of unknown origin that they’ve found at the site. That information is classified...
Condon brings a sharp and clever pacing to the opening issue of the new series. There’s a hell of a lot going on in the background of the central story, which plays out like a largely silent horror film. The black and white of the visuals make it feel like a particularly grainy mutation of Romero’s original Night of the Living Dead. There’s a looming, ominous feel about the script that suggests something overwhelming in the distant horizon, which is a hell of an accomplishment given the fact that a nuclear detonation hits six pages into the first issue. Something as big as that is only the beginning...
Love’s graininess is a love letter to television static and the darker side of human perception. The shadowy manifestations of darkness lurk across the page as the central protagonist finds himself on the run from irradiated zombies in Atomic Alley. Love’s surrealistic amplifications feel like a delicious nightmare on the page. There’s a solid sense of the overwhelming about it all that makes a heavy and profound presence on every panel of the issue. Tgere’s something awful going on here and it’s beautiful.
Much of the background of the issue takes the form of a top secret document at issue’s end. There’s also a menu for Old Joe’s at the end of the issue. It’s a clever addition of atmosphere that’s also echoes in the very stylish and moody webpage for the series. The site has a little bit more background on the series and a few ancillary bits. There’s a smart, little bit on that site that allows for readers to submit “reports” to the fictitious D.O.D. of the series for fan mail. It’s every bit as immersive as the first issue of the comic book itself, but from a completely different angle.
