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SUBATOMICby Patrick Neighly and Jorge Heufemann
(136pp book, $16.95,
Mad Yak Press)
Reviewed by Alan RankinThe first thing you notice about
Subatomic is its high production values. The eye-catching cover design, with raised lines converging on the central figure, and the full-color interior art, on slick page stock, combine to put this self-published project in a category with anything by the major comics publishers.
The story: Mark belongs to a top-secret agency that monitors American citizens – reading their mail, listening to their phone conversations, watching them from an aerial base high in the sky. Although he’s been raised from birth to do this, Mark starts to question the morality of his job. The one thing his superiors cannot control is independent thought; despite their programming, he begins plotting his escape to an everyday America he has never known.
The tale contains familiar elements of
The Fugitive,
The Prisoner, and
Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, along with the more repressive aspects of the current presidential administration. Mark’s tale raises questions about whether domestic security agencies are really after safety or just control. These topics have been explored in many another story, but of course they are always important to consider, and never more so than now. On a more subtle level,
Subatomic shows how such an agency disrupts the lives of ordinary Americans - who are just trying to do their jobs and get by - all for the sake of its own agenda.
The art by Jorge Heufemann is at a professional level, and colorist Anne Marie Horne receives top billing (as Lynn Varley does in Frank Miller’s books). Writer Patrick Neighly is also the publisher of
Subatomic, and while his writing is fine, I’m more inclined to praise his skills as a publisher. With the high quality of its production values,
Subatomic is a triumph of the self-publishing art, and gives the many creative folks who are producing their own work a new standard to aspire to.
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