Comics: Lightning Strikes Presents… Issue 1
Posted on 17th May 12 by Mike McGrath Bryan | 
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“…it’s great to see so many talented Irish writers and artists coming together and putting out a comic that will have something for all tastes. A high standard has been set too..”
With a chance Facebook comment I was lucky enough to come across a review copy for this new comic. What a find, ehh gad! And here was me longing for the days when Facebook was a mere place for nerds who liked to throw sheep at one another or poke each other. Once I even threw an Obama at someone and the retort was a Hilary Clinton. I’d like to think I won.
This is a pretty fantastic comic. It is made up of 10 individual stories, most of which will have something for all tastes of comic fans. The, mostly Irish, comic is set to be released to much fanfare this week at the Kapow Comic Convention in London and will be available to buy in Dublin City Comics on Bolton Street, Dublin and from the Lightning Strike website. For anyone wanting a digital copy you’ll be able to get it from iTunes once it’s launched officially. The stories cover a wide range of tastes, from humour to horror, comedy, revenge, fantasy, superheroes and many more besides. We are presented stories of steampunk time travel (A Clockwork Universe), a rather funny gender changing Superhero (Hybrid), a nightmarish run-in with a clown (Nightmare Scenario), a bumbling heroic robot (Queller), a reality fixer (Reality Watch), and the story of a winged monkey (Monkey of Oz) amongst others.
As said above there are 10 individual stories and it would neither be fair nor very interesting to go through them all in depth but I will give you my personal highlights.
The comic opens with Brian Ború. Of course, historical themes and storylines in comics are nothing new but what makes this story stand out from the crowd is the veiled violence and the suspense of the story. The colours too are not what you’d normally expect from this genre but they really work really well here and give the panels that extra lift needed to jump off the page at you.
Canon Law is probably the best of the bunch. The artistry is really fantastic to say the least. It’s a dark brooding story of revenge and murder and I cannot wait to read more about the character.
Nightmare Scenario is another one that’ll have you coming back to read more. The simplicity of it is the best quality. A child is harrassed by nightmares of a clown and needs help in the dreamworld to get away from his nemises. It’s a really fantasic little story and hopefully the helper will be making more appearances as this story grows in future issues.
The final story, Reality Watch, finds us joining up with a, what I’ve coined (for want of a better term), a reality fixer who investigates instances when reality malfunctions. It’s his job to apprehend the ones behind the reality change and restore things to the status quo. The possibilities with this story are limitless and I’m really looking forward to the storylines that the writers come up with next.
There are other stories too, there’s a wonderfully cliche-rich Superhero caper called Company Man, filled with sexual innuendo and Batman-like words such as Fwaassh/Fwak-A-Tha/Vreeeee. And to top off the list of ten, Draculwing. A story of a warrior locked in battle with the lord of the underworld.
Draculwing though could do with changing the font of the text, I found it almost impossible to read. Monkey of Oz was a bit strange too. I don’t remember the story of Oz so a bit of backstory would have helped out a lot.
Overall then it’s really great to see so many talented Irish writers and artists coming together and putting out a comic that will have something for all tastes. A high standard has been set too, we can only hope that issue 2 will be just as good and that it’ll be picked up by comic fans upon release. Normally, the comic world is so full of trivial meaningless rivalaries that it can tend to turn in on itself, much like the Irish music scene…or just about any Irish scene (why do we hate each other so much) that it would be quite normal for each comic to go at it alone. What Lightening Strike has done in coming together to put this out is something we should all take note of and take inspiration from.
Lightning Strike has landed, Fwak-A-Tha.
Tags: Irish comics, Lightning Strike
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