There are too many comics coming out each week.
Like, have you ever actually looked at a weekly release schedule for most comic companies? Marvel and DC are absolutely drowning the shelves with titles, and costing retailers thousands of dollars each month just to keep up. Meanwhile more and more indie studios are popping up, trying desperately to get their books notices under this deluge.
The result of this is that more and more really good indies are being skipped each week because people are going broke trying to keep up with the big two. And seriously, why? Don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of DC, and even a little Marvel, but honestly, neither publisher is really worth it right now. Marvel has created a line that is practically impenetrable to new readers while DC has succumbed to an endless reboot cycle that has blurred the characters to a paste pudding beige that ensures nothing matters anymore since there are absolutely no stakes for anything.
But we can change this friends! We can stop buying those books! Stop buying Batman for six months, then pick it back up. I’ll bet you that nothing has changed, and (If you drop every title with Batman in it for six months) you’ll probably have enough for a down payment on a nice condo to boot!
Meanwhile your money could be much better spent on books that are worth it from the beautiful world of indies, including today’s title, What’s the Furthest Place from Here? from the good people of Image Comics.
What makes it so good? Why is it better than Batman? Well let’s dive in together and find out!
Here’s the blurb:
A postapocalyptic coming-of-age story from 4 Kids Walk into a Bank’s TYLER BOSS & MATTHEW ROSENBURG.
The world has ended. All that remains are gangs of children living among the ruins. But Sid believes there must be something more out there. When she disappears into the wastelands, her gang will risk everything to bring her home. A story about the things that matter most—your survival, your loved ones, and your record collection.
You know what I like about this comic? It’s different. Now, don’t get me wrong, a plot about kids trying to survive in a post apocalyptical world is tried and true sci-fi, but you know what this book has that something like X-Men and Batman doesn’t? Stakes. It has actual stakes.
See, that’s why I love indies. There are actual stakes to their stories. Batman will never die. Captain America will never die. When you’re reading a book from the big two you never, ever worry that anyone in the book is in actual danger. Oh sure, a small side character might die, or be injured, but there are no actual stakes. Nothing actually changes. As Stan Lee said, they have the illusion of progress and change, but the books can’t keep going out week after week if something actually bad would really be able to happen.
But What’s the Furthest Place from Here? This book is tense, because you never know if and when something horrible is going to happen, and that’s beautiful.
Several times while reading What’s the Furthest Place from Here? I had to pause and ask myself what I hell I just read, and I mean that in the best possible way. There are visuals in the book that legitimately made me pause, and questions that hurt my brain to think about.
Bad stuff has happened in this world, and even worse stuff is still to come, and that’s fantastic.
Tyler Boss and Matthew Rosenburg have once again laid the groundwork for what I think is going to be a fantastic new series. This is a world of questions and chaos and horrors, where a handful of survivors are trying desperately to just survive, and you know what we don’t have once in the first issue?
An explanation.
It’s weird, but it seems like every post apocalyptic book I read anymore has a scene right at the beginning where they lay out how the world got so screwed up, and what the new normal is.
But here, there is none of that. We have no real idea what is going on other than a few bits and pieces we can scrape together, and honestly, that’s my favorite part. We just don’t know what is happening here and that’s not only is more realistic for me as a reader, it also makes things a hundred times more intense.
I don’t know what the rule are. I don’t know what the danger is, and both of these things combined kept me hungry to see where this story was going to go.
What’s the Furthest Place from Here? is getting a lot of hype, and rightfully so. Do yourself a favor and add it to your pull now, because this one might sell out fast.
Until next time, stay safe, and stop buying Batman 😉
