NEW BOOK ALERT!
At present, I’m in one of my occasional funks…adrift in a sea of superhero books and craving something different. I love superhero books though and the escapism they offer keeps me relatively sane but it does make for a balanced diet of consuming graphic media. One cannot subsist on superhero books alone, it’s like eating McDonald’s morning, noon, and night. I think they made a documentary about it called…The Man Who Only Ate McDonald’s.
To further belabor the metaphor, I may be inflating the effects of reading only superhero books to fit my narrative and who knows what else I’m struggling with right now? That said, my initial point stands and there’s a whole wide world of comic books out there that will excite your brain in ways Marvel or DC never could.
Out from Comixology RIGHT NOW is Ill Vacation, and it’s certainly worthy of your attention.
ILL VACATION
Steve Thompson (W)
Gonzalo Ruggieri (I)
Comixology Originals
Check it:
Ill Vacation, a psychological thriller set in the South Pacific in the 1940s. Told over the course of four chapters, Ill Vacation follows protagonists Bob and Mary, two young soldiers who want to help their country and its war effort. When they volunteer to take an experimental drug and are left behind to defend an island in the Pacific, things take a terrible turn. Instead of negating their fears, it turns their past trauma and nightmares into reality. Now, strange lights appear in a blood-red sky, a giant eye floats in the air and unearthly creatures emerge from the sea to haunt them inside an ever-growing maelstrom of terror. Can they survive?
Sounds pretty rad, right? Well, let me tell you something, buster…Black and white words on a page (or screen in this case) can’t even come close to conveying a sliver of what Steve Thompson and Gonzalo Ruggieri have created here. I also realize the cruel irony that it is indeed my job to convey these things to you in hopes that you read and enjoy the book like I did.
Ill Vacation took me back to the days of Vertigo Comics and other indie publishers that were cranking out fantastically weird and creative books that scratched corners of my brain that I didn’t even know existed. There’s a dreamlike quality to the book that works heavily in its favour, and the best thing that you can do as a reader is just go with it.
A lot of the comic review writing game for me is taking chances on things unknown to me, and I’m pleased to say that’s only backfired on me once to date. Ill Vacation is one of those pleasantly weird surprises that’s been gifted to me by the comics gods, and I’d highly encourage you to check it out as well.
