From Scout Comics’ Black Caravan imprint, Canceled #1 hits the bricks this week.
Larry, a 1950’s kid’s TV show host finds his program suddenly canceled. He’s out of a job, and pissed. Things go even worse for Larry, as he vows revenge on his replacement, Cruncho the Clown.
Writer David A Byrne has us ‘come on down’ to the fifties and sixties USA, with clean-cut kids everywhere watching their favourite shows on black and white console TVs. The ‘happy family’ content quickly becomes very real and really horrific.
There are multiple artists on the title, including Pabliku Man, Renan Balmonte, Medmanga, and Nick Justus. We don’t know ‘who is who’ nor ‘who drew what’ as we read the first issue, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume the first story is drawn by Pabliku Man. Man gives us an astonishly unsettling rendering of the host, the TV environment, and especially the children. Ultra-large faces and heads, small bodies. All in black and white. It’s like looking at an old issue of Mad Magazine, with Jack Davis, George Woodbridge, and Dave Berg, all blended together with an evil smile. Horrifying as heck.
Less successful are the subsequent chapters in the first issue, which read as epilogues. Due to their similarity, they read like ‘also rans’, alternate EC-related takes on the same successful riff. (Colourists include Renan Balmonte and Trevor Rubin, letters by Joel Rodriguez)
I have mixed feelings about this first issue: the premise is strong, the art by Man is creepy and unsettling for sure, but where does writer Byrne go from here? I will want to see issue 2, to feel that there is sufficient ‘life after Larry’ in this title.
Scout Comics, Black Caravan imprint, Canceled #1, $3.99 for 25 pages of content. Mature
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