Sunday Digest 12/01/14 – this weekend’s must-read digital comics including Injustice: Gods Among Use #3-7 from Madefire, D4VE #2, Down Set Fight #1, Blastosaurus: Welcome to Freakout City #1
This weekend’s must-read digital comics in the Sunday Digest include more cutting edge motion books from DC Comics/Madefire with Injustice Gods Among Us #4-7, quirky sci-fi in D4VE from MonkeyBrain Comics, a sports mascot mashup in Down Set Fight from Oni Press and gentically modified dinosaurs from ‘Down Under’ in Blastosaurus.
Injustice: Gods Among Us #4-7 (Madefire/DC Comics)
Madefire‘s partnership with DC Comics continues at pace with the first seven issues of the hit digital first series now available as motion books. With Year 2 being released day and date with this week, now is the perfect time to catch up on this superb series in it’s most sophisticated digital format to date. With the world realing from Superman’s actions after the death of Lois Lane and Batman attempting to recalibrate the Man of Steel‘s moral compass, Tom Taylor’s dystopian reality is hurtling towards the inevitable Kryptonian dictatorship as seen in issue 1, but can the Justice League do anything to halt it?! Taylor’s script is a superb mix of dark sci-fi and classic superhero dynamics, while artists Jeremy Rhaapak and Mike S Miller give the book a really strong sense of action which is only further amplified by the Madefire motion book engine. This is one of the best mainstream digital comics going right now, don’t miss out!
Injustice: Gods Among Us #1-7 motion books are available via the Madefire app for £1.49/$1.99 per episode
D4VE #2 (MonkeyBrain Comics)
The second issue of Ryan Ferrier and Valetin Ramon’s robot in a rut series D4VE see our hero get all up in your face as evil aliens begin to invade earth and challenge the robot’s perceived dominance. D4VE mixes a super smart sci-fi story with some crude low-brow humour to create a perfect mix that feels genuinely new and exciting – it’s like Modern Family meets Metropolis as drawn by Geof Darrow. There are very few sci-fi robot books that give you genuine belly laughs while their hero tries to save the world from alien invaders, but D4VE does just that! As our hero deals with his mid-life crisis, the repercussions on his impromptu day off work from last issue and his new teenage son’s inappropriate urges, his need to help save the world and go back to his old super soldier ways take over and the old D4VE gets tooled up and ready to go. But how will this impact on his new promotion at work?! More essential reading from Monkeybrain Comics!
D4VE is available via ComiXology for £0.69/$0.99
Down Set Fight #1 (Oni Press)
“Fearless” Chuck Fairlaine should have been a football hall of famer but he gave it all up after a fight with a mascot alongside revelations about his fathers involvement in a corrupt gambling circle. 10 years later Chuck is a South Carolina gym teacher but men dressed up in mascot costumes are coming out of nowhere and attacking him – and for some reason it’s now known as “Fairlaining“. As Chuck tries to get the bottom of this he has to take on an increasingly eclectic group of bad guy mascots before he gets to the the big boss. Chris Sims and Chad Bowers superbly original story is packed full of the same quirky energy as their fellow Oni title Scott Pilgrim – except Down Set Fight reads as if Scott Pilgrim writer Brian O’Malley had spent his formative years in a smokey 60s gambling den betting on Vince Lombardi and the Jets instead of playing video games. Fairlaine feels like your classic washed up champ who could have been a contender, but unlike the million and one other Rocky-wannabes, he’s taking on an eclectic bunch of colourful super villain style characters that could just as easily be plucked from the obscure pages of the Marvel back catalogue as they could from the sports fields of Hicksville USA. With superb artwork from Scott Kowalchuk that gives the book a really retro 60s/70s feel, with a faded muted colour scheme it feels like a period piece, despite being set in the present day. It’s a real knockout of a book, for sports fans and non-sports fans alike and reads more like a superhero book than a football tale. Packed full of humour and action, we challenge you to read it without grinning on every page – just don’t blame us if you want to go and punch a mascot once you’re finished!
Down Set Fight #1 of 6 is released via ComiXology for £1.49/$1.99
Blastosaurus: Welcome the Freakout City #1 (Square Planet Comics)
Following in the footsteps of the awesome Moth City and last week’s Tales to Admonish, Blastosaurus: Welcome To Freakout City is another great digital comic from ‘Down Under’ – this time from New Zealanders Richard Fairgray and Terry Jones. Blastosaurus is a genetically altered tricerotops/human hybrid bought to the future thanks to some bungling time travelling scientists. With his mother killed at the hands of genetically altered Velociraptors, Blastosaurus travels forward in time and joins forces with 3 freedom fighters to try and prevent the Raptors from destroying the present day. It’s part 90s Saturday morning cartoon, part time travel adventure with a generous dose of Hellboy and Savage Dragon thrown in for good measure. With a complex 3 time period narrative, it packs a lot in to this first issue, but Fairgray and Jones have included enough intrigue that we’ll definitely be coming back for more!
Blastosaurus: Welcome to Freakout City #1 is available from ComiXology for £1.49/$1.99 and you can read even more for free via the Blastosaurus website