More Indies you should be reading

I know that I’ve been saying that quite a bit these days but man do I have a couple of books that you should be reading now. Both of the stories that I am going to be discussing occurred in Mysterious Visions (#s 7 & 15) from Spa Comics.

The first one is from issue #7, and cover-features Shawnti Therrien’s Am I Immortal I’ve been a fan of Shawnti’s sings I first saw her work (Meth) in Psychosis! #1. Shawnti has, over the course of a number of years, and the span of a number publishers has been build quite an impressive universe. Her Gothic vampire lore is both erotic and compelling as she interweaves her story it simply draws you into the mythos and makes you believe that it is all possible.

Hey, forget that vampire-lite teen whinny angst of Twilight, all the really cool vampire stuff is happening here.

This issue of Visions is rounded out by Ill (Ryan Cox & Al Ullman) and The History Collective (Terry Montimore). Ill is the story of someone who seems to have voices going off in his head, while The History Collective is part one of a story that involves time travel and the space-time continuum. Both deliver solid art and intriguing premises.

Issue #15 gives us the debut work of Liz Ortiz’s Rasgal who place high in last years Comicbook Idol thus ensuring her this stand-alone issue of her work. The Manga-style story involves other-worldly creatures, swordplay, and high adventure. It marks an impressive debut of an obviously talented individual who is certainly worth watching.

I do, however have one (smallish) nit to pick about this issue, in that I totally didn’t like the lettering on this story, which was (for some inexplicable reason) was rendered in Times Roman (a serif font) rather than in a tradition comicbook-style (sans-serif) font.This proved to be the most jarring element of this otherwise wonderful comic. After over 40 years of reading comics it just didn’t look right to me.

Still, this is a small point, and I still recommend acquiring this comic.