3 random hours, 3 random comics

In my continued efforts to branch out and see a world outside of the Marvel/DC universe, Orbital Comics is always a haven of sorts. Following no particular theme and looking out for nothing in particular, I nabbed a couple of titles here and there in the hopes that I’d find myself a new series to follow.

‘Samurai’s Blood’
Owen Wiseman and Michael Benaroya’s tale of greed and power, that see’s 3 teenagers witness the death and destruction of their parents and village and vow to seek revenge by the way of the samurai…you know, the usual. But it wasn't this solid story and slick pencils of Nam Kim that drew me to it, oh no…it was the fact that this bad boy was only 75p.
For this bargain price it was pretty much worth it, although I’m not too sure that I would have forked out the extra £3. It’s nicely written in that ‘oh so serious, way of the samurai’ tone, with all sorts of cute analogies involving rivers and wind. Also it’s pretty neat how this first issue is a nice round up of what to expect in the next 5 issues, and works as a nice little circle (the beginning is the end but that doesn’t become clear until the end, kinda thing)



There are 6 issues in this title and whilst it would be cool to read the other 5, it’s not really at the top of my must-have list.


‘Homecoming’
“What the hell is homecoming?”, “It’s basically like Buffy but…”, “SOLD”
And so there I was thinking that Dave Wohl, Emilio Laiso, Brett Smith, Josh Reed had formed the ultimate alliance to become Joss Whedon⁴…close but no cigar.
With the earth on the brink of an alien invasion, a young girl returns to earth (after being abducted 10 years prior) as a soldier to stop it. She’ll also be juggling this with the trials of teen hood and high school (woo). One thing that I do really like is the current tone of the narrator – the story is told in the past, so it doesn't leave me rather intrigued to see what will happen at the end.
Homecoming (so far) is Buffy, meets Roswell, meets every teen scí-fi series of the late 90’s early 00’s. A bold assumption to make after just reading 1 issue, but I think it’s a safe one. I think I’ll keep reading.

'27 Second Set’
Another one for the bargain bucket. All 4 issues for £2, this is single handily one of the oddest thing’s I’ve ever read...mainly because I’m pretty sure that there’s a story before this. I’m not really sure what to say. It’s a story about 2 ‘has been’s’ looking to regain their fame – The main character Garland had made a deal with some kind of power, which gave him this button thing in his chest which makes him uber awesome and creative. A one hit wonder witch see’s this and decided she wants it for herself. Game on.
It was alright but the artwork creeped the hell out me (reminded me of some of the scary books I used to read when I was younger) so much that it kinda works. Whilst it seems to be trying to articulate a very strong message about fame and greed, it’s not really the one for me. Soz.