[quote]Those hungry ghosts who walk amongst us. Their waking lives long atrophied… their promise abandoned… content to suffer fragmented truths until oblivion, and along with it, the dream’s end.[/quote]
From the first frames, Dynamite’s new book, Cryptozoic Man #1 caught my attention. After that, things just exploded. Page to page, I could not stop turning. The shifts in artwork, pages that broke many standard rules of comics, breaking the frames, spattering the borders, all things that make me love this comic.
Cryptozoic Man #1 starts a 4-issue series from the minds of Walt Flanagan and Bryan Johnson of AMC’s “Comic Book Men” and is their first attempt to create a comic of their own. It is weird, sometimes disjointed, but it is a very solid read and leaves you begging for more story. This is another book that I am excited to see through to conclusion.
Alan Ostman was just a normal guy, a father, until all hell broke loose, quite literally. People called it the end times, but whatever it was, it was bad. From the images that Alan has pieced together from shards of memory, he was abducted by aliens, or angels as he calls them, cut into pieces, and then merged with multiple other animals. Reminiscent of Man-Bear-Pig, he is now half-man, half-ape with a snake arm, a horse or goat leg, and a monkey leg? A weird looking amalgamation, but highly effective against the monsters in the world.
The mastermind behind this first part of the story seems to be some person (?) dressed in pink leather and a pig fetish mask. He/she/pig knows an awful lot of private things. That got me to thinking, who could it be. The words it speaks point to something… calling itself the bringer of light, i think, is the key. The angel Lucifer was called the angel of light… so, is this Lucifer or Satan himself? The pig spiders seem to be a dead giveaway.
The story will unfold. Alan will pursue the cryptids to unlock the portals so that he can find his daughter. All I can say is that Sasquatch, Nessie, Chupacabra, and the Abominable Snowman (plus a couple of other monsters) better watch their backs. They have to die in order for Alan’s mission to be a success.
I like the art and the writing. This is some kind of post-apocalyptic world, but a little different than most. No nuclear fallout or alien invasion… well, there is a little alien involvement, but still. I will warn you, it is a tad bloody, but other than monster guts and blood, a great read and something worth trying.
This is actually their 3rd mini-series together and Walt drew 2 different Batman series with Kevin Smith doing the writing.
You are correct, my mistake. They did War of the Undead and Karney.