This is not your grandparents’ Alice in Wonderland. Or your grade school teacher’s, nor Alice Cooper’s. No, this Alice Ever After #1 from BOOM! Studios is a mature departure from the usual fairy tale fodder.
In this “Ever After…” scenario, Alice is all grown up and has become hooked on drugs. She is living a dangerous life. In order to escape the drudgery of her everyday deal, Alice plunges into her alternate Wonderland courtesy of pharmaceuticals.
Writer Dan Panosian, well known in the comic book world, pens this sobering portrayal of Alice as a troubled adult. The scenes have emotional weight, we feel for Alice and yearn for her safety, all the while gripping the edge of our seats. What will befall our heroine, while she doses herself silly? When she has her great fall, will she be able to pick herself up, dust herself off and start all over again? How low will she stoop while on the evening stroll of shame?
Artist Giorgio Spalletta (and Dan Panosian, with Fabiana Mascolo on colour, Jeff Eckleberry on letters) gets the perfect balance between Fractured Fairy Tale and A Tale of Two Cities here. It’s retro, it’s full of stiff upper lip, upper-crust characters, but the gestures are fluid, and the wardrobe and settings feel genuine.
The narrative device, with two cats acting in harmony to inform us with their comments, is brilliant. It’s so cartoony in that regard, but the adult smell of danger around uncontrolled substances is bewitching, making this a highly compelling book to read!
BOOM! Studios, Alice Ever After #1, $3.99 for 24 pages of content.
Anthony Andujar Jr. 
Newsdesk