Psyence Fiction #1
Psyence Fiction #1 © Rik Hoskin & Dan Abnett (script), Dave Morris & Patrick O'Connor (art)
| Psyence Fiction #1 Dan Abnett, Rik Hoskin, Ian Richardson, Dave Morris, Patrick O'Connor |
| Link Mail Abaculus |
Essentially, this is a relaunch of Rik Hoskin's lead strip from his Defective Comics series, this time professionally packaged. This improves a lot of the old run though, thanks to a stronger art team and an added page count resulting in Hoskin trimming down a lot of his dialogue to a more manageable level. In effect, Psyence Fiction follows the adventures of the Psyence Agency, a secret organisation that deals with arcane threats (X-Files goes mystic) but the threat or mystery is less interesting than the characters, here investigating a weird horse-drawn train. While the strip is definite improvement, it does lose points by being 'new reader unfriendly'. There's lots of running about but beyond one scene with some background details exposed, new readers will be left going "What?" quite often.
Rice's talking gun Majestic and the Key to the Universe are both examples of this. Fortunately, the second strip focuses on the only two agents in a more accessible mystery story that seems to run of the mill until the nice twist ending. Both strips have fairly strong, mainstream art with the first being more crisp and the second more smooth but it's an enjoyable read at the same time.
Nigel Lowrey.
| Psyence Fiction #1: 32 26x17cm pages, glossy full colour cover. | Recieved at ZUM! HQ: no info |
£1.95 (inc P+P), $2.95(US)/$3.95(Can) | R.Hoskin, Abaculus, 1 Ravensbourne Road, East Twickenham, Middlesex, TW1 2DG, UK |