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About Convert #1:
Writer: John Arcudi Artist: Savannah Finley Colorist: Miguel Co
Letterer: Michael Heisler
Publisher: Image Comics
Cover Artist: Simon Gane
Publication Date: August 21st, 2024
Logline:
Science Officer Orrin Kutela finds himself stranded on a distant planet, starving and haunted by the ghosts of his dead crew. On the verge of death, he makes an astonishing discovery.
Convert #1 Review:
Image Comics have published this brand new science fiction survivalist comic book series penned by writer John Arcudi and artist Savannah Finley. A survival science fiction comic book which refuses to get caught in the usual trappings of science fiction turning to horror for its answer to an overarching antagonist. Instead, the threat to main character Orrin lies in the fallacies and arrogance ever-present as humanity struggles to cross that final frontier. Think of films like The Martian or even Interstellar, for a near enough analogy.
Going back to the writer for a moment. Arcudi appropriately scribes Orrin as this reluctant astronaut in a space mission requiring his services as artist and evolutionary biologist. A reluctance felt throughout the entirety of the comic book issue as he struggles with the loss of his fellow astronauts in an unfortunate explosion and his all-of-a-sudden isolation. An isolation which turns truly alien thanks to Finley’s artwork depicting a world of spooky hollowed out trees, dog-like creatures with external skull craniums and poisonous fish. A world which isn’t going out of its way to kill Orrin but is sure to see him die of starvation with its poisonous fauna and scarce flora littering the landscape as far as his eyes can see.
Content warning ahead, so maybe close the window, as Arcudi tackles Orrin’s waning mental health as he eventually tries to commit suicide. An attempt which fails miserably thanks to his wasting of shells trying to hit creatures he’s failed to hunt. It’s not a situation of complete and utter moron in Orrin’s failing to fend for himself but more a realisation that here’s an academic faced with the insurmountable task of trying to survive on an alien world. It’s during this desperation where Orrin takes to the mountains as hypothermia is said to be a quicker death than starvation. A moment where the juxtaposition of colorist Miguel Co’s palette against Orrin’s bleak immediate future makes the alien landscape sing and find new octaves of shadow, texture and cosmic colour.
‘Convert’ - Issue 1 is a refraction of cosmic colours that blend into an overall bleak storyline. A story that organically world builds as it envelopes new sights and sounds through the eyes of audience surrogate Orrin. A character compassionately flawed which you’ll empathise with as his attempts to survive and swatted out of his hands time and time again.
This first issue exists somewhere in the regions of science fiction and survivalist storylines like The Martian and Cast Away. A terrific play on the comic book medium as the main character draws what he hears and sees just as we witness what Finley and Arcudi wanted us to hear and see. All lazy attempts at science fiction survivalism are thankfully forgotten here as I prep myself for what will be an equally impressive Issue 2.
And that’s why I’m giving this a 9/10.
