The Imaginaries #1
Originally presented at Comixtreme.com on April 16, 2005:
Quick Rating: Great
Title: Lost and Found Part One
Where does an imaginary friend go when a child no longer needs him?
Writers: Ben Avery & Mike S. Miller
Pencils: Mike S. Miller & Greg Titus
Colors: Lynx Studio & Greg Titus
Letters: Bill Tortolini
Editor: Mike S. Miller
Cover Art: Mike S. Miller (Cover A); Greg Titus (Cover B)
Publisher: Image Comics/Alias Enterprises/DB Pro
Review: A few weeks ago I reviewed another Mike Miller/Alias Enterprises comic, Lullaby: Wisdom Seeker, which was a great combination of classic children’s books. With this second Alias production, this new studio is really poising itself to be a leader in all-ages comic books. This is one of the best new comics I have read in a very long time, and like Lullaby, it’s one that adults can read, appreciate, and then share with their children.
To cope with his parents’ marital troubles, a young boy named Tanner takes up the adventures of Superhero G, a character his father dreamt about as a child. When he grows older, though, and life gets harder, Tanner abandons the hero. Superhero G then finds himself in another world, stranded on the outskirts of a great walled city in the midst of an unforgiving desert. He has been sent to the Imagined Nation, home of imaginary friends that children no longer dream about, and unless he finds a way into the city, he will soon be no more.
I am a sucker, I will admit, for stories about the power of imagination, and this is one of the best such stories I’ve come across. While the story is about a child growing older, for a younger child it will reinforce the power of their own creations, make them more real rather than less.
Miller and Titus do an equally strong job with the artwork. The “real” world looks like the sort of art style you’d find in a strong superhero comic, which is interesting since the superhero doesn’t show up at all. We also get a few pages in a child’s crayon style before moving on to the “imaginary” world, where the art makes a minor shift. While the shift isn’t so drastic as to be jarring, things do become a little more cartoonish, and not just because we’re faced with living snowmen and talking bunny rabbits. Body structures become more exaggerated, faces elongated, and we feel like we’ve fallen into a Saturday morning cartoon or - more appropriately - the imagination of a particularly vivid child.
Is it fair to say that, with just one issue, I’m in love with this book? I think so. This is the kind of stuff that I just eat up, and if you’ve got kids that you want to bring into the world of comics, Alias Enterprises now has not one, but two fantastic entry-level comic books. Check this out.
Rating: 9/10