Isom #1

 

There is no way to talk about the single highest-grossing crowdfunded graphic novel of all time without getting into some history.

So let's talk about ComicsGate. Grab a glass of your favorite beverage, cause this is a doozy. ComicsGate (CG) began around 2016, with a bunch of people (rightfully) saying that the folks at Marvel and DC were no longer writing comics, but mostly leftist propaganda. And that it sucked. They took issue with new token characters like Ms. Marvel and pointed out (again, correctly) that they weren't really characters, not when it counted, but propaganda machines. And let's not leave out the part where "heroes"  began acting like class-A sociopaths, right Iron Heart? Now, the problem is that a lot of these people were, for lack of a better word, assholes. Generally when someone gets mad they become an asshole. And frankly, if you've ever seen a single tweet from someone like Dan Slott, Maggs Visaggio, or Vita Ayala... it's kinda hard to not get extremely angry very quickly. So they reacted.

They were labeled a hate group. 

By people who do whisper networks to bring down other creators they don't like. 

By people who intentionally go out of their way to destroy other people's careers and boast about it. Publicly.

Yeah.

Understand, I am not defending the ComicsGate people who were jerks. But if they count as a hate group the "mainstream" is, objectively, a hategroup as well. The next few years anyone with a conservative voice inside of mainstream comics being pushed out, with bonafide legends like Chuck Dixon more or less being blacklisted for not subscribing to the next lefitst cause. There's a cruel joke here, of course: said conservatives went on to make very publicly livable amounts of money, something no mainstream writer or artist could ever claim to make. As it turns out, crowdfunding is actually profitable!

Enter Eric D. July, a black libertarian musicisn and culture war commentator. As is always the case for prominent dissidents, I pay attention to July, not because I agree with him politically, but because all dissidents, at root, have a point, somehow. Like most dissidents, I don't think Mr. July is correct about much of anything, because he's in the forest, looking at individual trees. I also think libertarianism is a naive ideology. But, unlike a lot of the dissidents, July had true confidence. The man had gone through hell multiple ways, and you don't fake the type that kind of experience. July's concerns, while sometimes off the mark, were always grounded in assumptions I've always fundamentally agreed with, that of the need to make money in comics and actually loving the medium.

When July declared he was going to start a comic book company, called the Rippaverse, I was a bit... skeptical. I knew July to be a businesman, so I didn't doubt he couldn't figure something out, but he very openly wanted to take on the mainstream and win.

I mean, look at this page from Isom #1. Pretty clear what his intentions are, aren't they? Not exactly the picture of subtlety.

Now, the next part of this is where it gets interesting. See, when Isom #1 launched, a year ago, it broke 3.5 million in pre-orders. There was one, just one, article from the mainstream "news sources". Reddit banned any talk of the launch, because they had lumped July in with the ComicsGate people. July wasn't the first one they hadn't done it to (see Alterna Comics!), but this was the first time that the absurdity became obvious... assuming you were watching.

And I was.

The things they called July were awful. I'm not going to post them here. But you can find them. The "inclusive" mainstream called July Uncle Tom and much worse, becoming exactly what they had always accused the conservative movement of.

Go ahead. Look. It's around.

Truth is a bitch, ain't it?

Despite all this, or probably because of it, July's first book pulled in 3.5 million bucks. And during all of this I didn't give a red cent to Eric July. It's not that I disagreed with his words... but I wanted to see his actions. And it took a year, but 2023 dropped and July began to make serious moves. He opened up an additional warehouse, contracted Chuck Dixon for not one, but two books, got the Yaira book up and running, all while working on Isom #2. I watched. And waited. 35 bucks for 96 pages seemed a bit of a hard sell, considering July had never written a comic in his life and I couldn't get seem to get any actually objective review to tell me if I might even enjoy the book for being, well.... yanno... A BOOK. Because, at the end of the day, July isn't here to fight a culture war. If he wanted to do that he'd just keep making YouTube videos. He's here to write comics. And I had no idea if I wanted to try his work at all.

And then Isom #1 went on sale.

So I ordered it.

What follows, now that we got the legwork out of the way, is an honest attempt to review Isom #1. There's been a lot of buzz around the book, and now, while people are finally trying to be objective about the work, I feel the reviews are lacking. So here's my attempt to do it.

First off, this book is extremely high quality. Here's the mailer the book came in:

Were they worried about people trying to bomb their books??? This sucker is sturdy.

The book itself is of amazing quality. Not good, not even great, amazing. The book feels so good to hold. I know that sounds weird. But it's very very clear where the price tag of 35 bucks went: this is a damn wonderful book. I like holding the book, just to hold it.  The colors are bright, there isn't a chance in hell of the text smearing, ever, even after this book survives the nuclear holocaust and me and the cockroaches don't. July wanted the book to last, and it's gonna. The packaging and physical product are far better than anything else on the market currently, and it's not even close. I'm not sure when they're going to announce that Isom #1 could be used as a radiation shield during a nuclear blast, but trust me it's coming.

Now, onto the art. Cliff Richards pencils and inks. While the style is okay, not being stylized or realistic enough for my tastes, Richards's storytelling is awesome. I didn't need to do the squint test on 95% of these pages; my eyes flowed very easily acrost the pages. There's an ease, a grace, to the storytelling here that I really enjoyed. This is slow-burn done really, really, really well. Honestly, there were moments where July should have just shut up and let Richards off the chain even more. We'll get to that more in a minute, but this book is fun to look at and is worth the price of admission alone.

Yes, I jsut said I'd buy the book at 35 bucks just for the art's storytelling. Isom #2 is now coming in, so my money is where my mouth is.

The story itself is where things get trickier. Isom #1 has some truly impressive requirements: it's not just the first part of a three-book arc, it's openly supposed to set up an entire superhero universe. The book is openly called a "launching pad" right on the opening page, so this isn't me just guessing: Isom #1 is the hook for multiple lines of books, all at once. In 96 pages. I'm sorry, but that's an impossible goal. I don't know of anyone who could pull that off, it's why the freaking Avengers movie comes so relatively late in the MCU lineup! Again, this is an impossible task. Seasoned writers ain't gonna be able to do it, nevermind a first outing (this is July's first comic), which means that the book is hosed before it even starts. Some things just should not be attempted. The question isn't whether or not July fails his narrative requirements, it's actually how well he handles the failure. You could either go all-out on world-buidling, while not really focusing on Isom, or go really hard on your titular character and throw in just enough world-building to where people want more. 

Well the book goes with what I think is the correct approach: it focuses very closely on Avery Silman, Isom, and uses the story to introduce Yaira and the Alphacore. The problem is that neither of these extra elements are actually interesting. Yaira shows up for a few pages, along with the Alphacore and... isn't really used. And, I mean, Yaira's got a ton of hype already! Here's some fan art of her, from here.

Like, why are people so excited? I genuinely don't get it. I'm honestly not sure what the hype around these characters is about. This is one of those moments when the hype around the Rippaverse honestly feels unearned. What on earth, from the page, would make us like these characters? I know I'm interested because I know Eric's hired good writers and artists to make the books, so I'm hyped for that, but from these pages alone? I mean, who cares? Eric could have swapped Yaira, at the very least, and actually have made the story make more sense. The story beat she shows up in is necessary, and I like it, and I really like how the fight she shows up in is drawn even! But she particularly didn't need to be here. Alphacore making any form of entrance makes sense given the narrative, but Yaira is fan service in the worst way possible.

Fortunately Avery himself is a really interesting character. A former superhero turned rancher, Avery is the type of grouchy "don't yank me out of retirement" character I automatically find myself liking. The thing is that July could have just left it there, but doesn't. Avery's really well sketched-out, with a huge chip on his shoulder that gets him in trouble, along with a sense of honor that puts him back in trouble. It's got a lot of potential, and July takes that potential and fleshes it out with entertaining fights and some actually sweet scenes. His supporting cast are grounded and fun to read about. The actual heart and soul of the story is well-done, and what more could you ask for than that?

Now, the thing is that several reviewers have commented that the pacing of the book is slow and not much happens. That's something I really disagree on. The book is meant to be a slow burn, as per the mission statement of Eric July. And the plot is a good, slow, burn. He takes his time, sets things up, and by the time you're done with the first issue you got a really good idea of who Avery is and what's at stake. The plot achieves its ends and does it well. What really needs work, however, is the freaking dialogue. Good gravy, there's pages in this book that don't need any dialogue at all, because they're so well drawn and laid out... and there's dialogue. And it's not good. Flat out, not good. And honestly it never could have been good, because these are the pages where you shut up. The art saves these pages, fundamentally, but in the hands of a lesser artist they'd be painful pages to read. July was smart to pick Richards to back him up, to patch the narrative for his first time out.

There's also some bonus pages in the back of the book, for a concept called Norfrica. Not gonna lie, I didn't really get what was going on here. I get it's a pitch, but a pitch for what exactly? I feel a bit thick reading it, because I know he's trying to pitch another title, but honestly I'm not sure why I should care about these characters, or their power of the "lyrics being real". I was thoroughly underwhelmed. If there's a good creative team behind it I'll consider buying it, because I like what I read about Avery... but certainly not on the strength of these pages. There's also a nice pin-up of Yaira at the end. It's a nice drawing, but again, not getting the draw, at least not yet. Some parts of this book just scream "You should already be hyped!"

Nuh-uh.

You earn that shit from me.

Now, let's not get this confused. I like this book! Had I know how much I'd like it I'd happily have shelled out thirty five bucks for it. The book quality and the art alone is worth the thirty-five, and I really don't say that lightly. I like how July swings for the fences, swings hard, and just keeps swinging. He hits at the important stuff, borks the small. You can't ask more for a beginning attempt.

Now, the question is "Does this book warrant the 3.5 million dollar craze?" On its own terms? Hell no. The book simply isn't that good. So why did it bring in this amount of money, besides the book being 35 hard-earned George Washingtons?

This. This page right here.

Look, folks, the simple fact of the matter is that this book found an untapped market. There's apparently a bunch of would-be readers who obviously connected with the above ethics, which this apparently untapped market felt are not currently being honored by the Big Two. So, regardless of whether or not you like this comic book or not, whether you like ComicsGate or not or even think in those terms (which I do not think healthy)… that’s a lot of money left on the table. 

Given that Isom #2 hit 2.2 million dollars in pre-orders, and that there’s at least two more projects coming out before the end of the year, I think it safe to say that the Rippaverse ain’t going anywhere. Isom isn’t a fluke. This book is a good first outing, and is about to be accompanied by veteran teams who openly want to take the comic world by storm. They may even succeed. 

But they're not going away.