Comic Review – Hinterkind # 1
You know, I’ve been writing about the good work that Image is doing with such frequency lately that I haven’t really had much time to sing the praises of other imprints. Dark Horse has been churning out some great work lately, and so too has Vertigo. You know, Vertigo? The imprint responsible for Y The Last Man, Fables, Ex Machina, and 100 Bullets? When Karen Berger left the company earlier this year, a lot of people considered it a sign that DC Comics was shuttering Vertigo and wouldn’t bother to utilize the brand. After all, Hellblazer went away and Constantine got his own DC title. Things certainly looked like they were going in a different direction.
But DC seems to have given Vertigo some breathing room. Brian Azzarello returned to pump out a 100 Bullets miniseries, Fables and Fairest are still going strong and now we have a new contender for most interesting book on the block with Hinterkind, a post-apocalyptic story that, even after a single issue, feels like a worthy companion to Y The Last Man.
The new book comes to us from Ian Edginton, a writer from Birmingham in the UK who has co-written comics with Dan Abnett and Warren Ellis, primarily in the science fiction and fantasy genre. He’s tackled everything from Warhammer to X-Force to Vampirella and now he’s launching a creator owned series with artist Francesco Trifogli.
Hinterkind gives us a world reclaimed by nature but still occupied by humans, generations after the change in the balance of power. We have become a society of hunters and gatherers, submissive to the whim of nature and the beasts of the wild. Edginton and Trifogli set the book in such a way that the reader slowly learns more and more about the situation of the reclaimed earth slowly and organically, with answers giving way to more questions that will likely not be as quickly resolved.
The book is like many other post-apocalyptic books but dissimilar at the same time. More Y The Last Man than Walking Dead, at least in terms of tone and character, Hinterkind is a well-paced and beautifully drawn book that I would recommend picking up now rather than waiting until months from now and kicking yourself for it.
Rating: 4/5
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