In It’s Only Teenage Wasteland #2, the teens are camped out inside the corner convenience store, the scene of last issue’s crazy costumed man’s attack.

There is wreckage strewn everywhere, coffee machines leaking, but the guys are discussing their next move. There is no one else around! The area outside the store looks deserted and abandoned. So what to do? Hey, why not catch a movie!

This Dark Horse comic treads into sticky stuff at every turn, wincing but never truly apologizing. It’s locker room talk, frank and blunt. But Curt Pires writes character scenes that work, that slip and slide on the gooey remains of relationships, the bitter grounds of burnt bridges. There is pathos and bathos and no one is taking a shower anytime soon. It gets real ‘real fast’.

It seems as if the world has changed for these urban teens, and we are alongside for the awkward takes on this post-apocalyptic setting: weirdos, violence, twists and turns of the knife, the words that hurt and leave scars. The shards of some huge chunks of glass that are embedded into the lawns and streets of the town. 

I like the pace of the action here, and I like artist Jacoby Salcedo’s calm depiction of the suburban chaos. It’s blankness, it’s mundane, but the people are active and alive. The panels circle around the scene, going in close for expressions, and backing off when told to. Colourist Mark Dale keeps it minimal but descriptive too, allowing the line art and dialogue to stay front and centre, but adding cool greys to the mix, and spots of orange when something gets really ripe and juicy. Micah Myers’s letters, emphasizes, effecting action and drama nicely.

Great read, rough and ripplingly dramatic.

Dark Horse, It’s Only Teenage Wasteland #2 of 4, $3.99 for 26 pages of content. Mature.

By Alan Spinney

After a career of graphic design, art direction and copywriting, I still have a passion for words and pictures. I love it when a comic book comes together; the story is tight, and the drawings lead me forward. Art with words... the toughest storytelling technique to get right. Was this comic book worth your money? Let's see!!