Releasing next week is a brand new title from a company new to the comics realm. Blue Juice Comics, an upstart division of Blue Juice Films Production Company, enters the marketplace with this effort through Diamond Comics Distributors.
Blue Juice gives us a book written by screen writer R.F.I. Porto (
Blue Caprice, official selection at this year’s Sundance film festival), with pencils and ink work done by Gavin P. Smith, and colors by Tim Yates. The cover was done by Walt Flannigan, he of the Secret Stash/
Comic Book Men fame.
The story here is straight-forward – in more ways than one. It is an engaging read with a spartan use of character; there are only three primaries in this introductory book around which all of the action is centered. Time travel is the focus here, though it becomes delivered with a unique approach to the convention. At the start the time-centric theme is introduced with an opening represented in Flannigan’s cover art. The setting is a stadium arena with modern signage and video boards. The arena floor meanwhile is populated with individuals pitted against each other while sporting attire which suggests they are from a wide range of past eras.
Next we are presented a more contemporary setting however, in keeping with the time manipulation premise, the suburban location is a more distant reality. In the parking lot of a small movie theater a flash of blue light precedes the sudden arrival of a redhead in a lab coat. Her name is Lex, and while clutching a glowing blue ring in her hand she locates a newspaper which tells her that she has jumped forward half a decade to the year 1970. Next on the scene is a soldier, with a gun, also clutching one of the blue spheroids. He is trying to stop Lex for some reason and thus the pursuit begins, but this is not a standard foot chase.
Lex disappears from the scene and we come to learn the devices allow for them to time-jump, arriving at new era at the same location with a unique feature – they are only able to move forward through time. During one of the jumps Lex has a chance encounter with a younger male and he becomes an unwitting participant. He and Lex arrive together in another future jump, landing inside a modern shopping mall (to the surprise of a group cameo you’ll recognize in the background).
As an introductory title
The Accelerators delivers both an absorbing plotline and it leaves the reader wanting more, setting things up for the next book. As independent books go this one excels in bypassing the super hero construct while using the medium to deliver a cinematic plotline. There is plenty of room for an ongoing series and numerous questions are posited for future consideration. For starters, if the time travel is only a forward-moving construct how did combatants from past eras come to arrive in the battle arena? Readers will look forward to resolving these ponderables in upcoming editions.
Street Date: May 22, 2013
http://www.bluejuicecomics.com/wordpress/