It’s the later eighties in the US. A young woman wearing a hoodie crosses the road to enter a woman’s health centre. She doesn’t chicken out at the sight of placard-waving protesters stationed in front of the centre. “Babies are murdered here”, “execute baby killers,” say the signs. She tells off the organizer, and it seems as if he goes into a trance. Then things get dangerous. So opens Sirens Of The City #1, new from BOOM! Studios.
Writer Joanne Starer commits to this story, tossing together the back alleys, the undercurrent of nastiness in a clever way. The dialogue pulses hits like a whip. It’s magnetic to us, we delight in the rudeness, the utter hopeless meandering of the satanically cool characters. The scenes twist and turn, ringing true, better than TV.
It is a scrappy, tough title, full of spit and vinegar. It will snicker in your face and spit on your shoe. It will warm the cockles of your heart while it picks your pretty little pocket. Layla is a survivor. She’s a pregnant punk chick, with shaved hair along the sides, big black boots, and a side order of sneering snark. She’s also powerful, in a supernatural way, discarded from her foster home, all the while being in the ‘family way’. She’s got a ‘baby daddy’ who’s connected.
The visuals (Artist Khary Randolph) are harsh, high-contrast black masses on bleached white surroundings. The figures stretch and leap, restless and shadowed. The lettering is colour coded, with Andworld Design jumping in to tell the blues from the reds.
Speaking of colour, the people of colour in Sirens Of The City are rendered in black and white. Yes, the whole book is grey, high contrast, which in this instance really works. Rather than looking colourless, the absence of flat colour (with a few exceptions) draws us closer, whispers ‘intense drama’ in our inner ear.
All too soon, it’s over, the first issue finished, everyone deeply entangled in the gradual raising of horrific stakes. The good, the bad, the ugly all indistinguishable and unbeatable. You can bet your sweet gnarly ashes that I will be back for the next rad issue, where everything picks up again and gets massive!
BOOM! Studios, Sirens Of The City #1, $3.99 for 34 pages of content
Newsdesk