Comic Review: It’s Only Teenage Wasteland #3 (Dark Horse Comics)

It’s Only Teenage Wasteland #3, from Dark Horse, tosses us into the continuing angst of the odd new world.

The teens are in an urban wasteland, where they camp in abandoned retail stores, and survive on snack food at the corner convenience store. There are your good guys and your baddies, of course. Writer Curt Pires treads through the wreckage of post-apocalyptic tropes and pulls together some drama amongst the rubble. Where old ideas go to die, Pires revives them and winds them up for another swing at the cat.

Artist Jacoby Salcedo renders the scenes of disconnect with a sure line, heavy and clear around his young characters. The viewpoints of his art are interesting. The art feels ‘open’ with little spotting of black shadow. There are periodic ‘white spaces’ where we can breathe between the claustrophobic moments. Salcedo’s able to float us around a scene, show us the essentials, and not get caught up in the peripherals.

Mark Dale’s colours are largely muted, but appropriate for the subject matter of this third of four issues in the miniseries, and Micah Myers employs a wide-based hand-lettered looking dialogue font, interspaced with ’no frills’ special FX.

It’s dramatic, the characters are well-defined, and there is plenty of trouble to be sweating over for your $4.

Dark Horse, It’s Only Teenage Wasteland #3 (of 4), $3.99 for 27 pages of content