Utopiates
Comics is a stormy, dangerous coastline, shallow and sharp, but UTOPIATES stands like a lighthouse guiding you to the safe harbor where smart, intense comics still exist... ---Phil Hester (Fringe, Swamp Thing)It's great a when a new talent can emerge and breathe new life into a genre. Cyber-punk is probably my favorite flavor of science fiction, for these are stories not about aliens or space travel, or the what-ifs beyond time and space, but are stories just one step ahead of our current technology (and in some cases our science has caught up with our fiction). Utopiates is part Strange Days, part A Scanner Darkly , with a touch of The Matrix's sensibilities thrown in for good measure.In Utopiates we are faced with the possibility of engineered pharmaceuticals, and the lengths to which people will go to acquire the feelings and experiences that life did not offer us. Issue #1 is an excellent introduction into the Dystopian world that Finney and Rocha have created for us, but hang on for issues #2 & #3, because that's when the ride starts to really get good! Noirish, gritty and tragic, Utopiates is like rediscovering something you never knew. ---Previews Magazine, Staff PickAdmittedly inspired by the works of Gibson, Dick, and Welsh, Utopiates mixes the swirling abyss of addiction with the cyberpunk leanings of drug-obsessed futurist writers. The first-person narration is classic cybernoir, and the digital black and white art lends this dark story a unique flair. Creators Josh Finney and Kat Rocha are to be commended for diving into familiar waters and coming up with something new. It s well worth your time to check out ---Newsarama.com