First Law of Mad Science...

Having attended the NY Comic Con about a month ago I was able to see a lot of upstart comic artists' work. Much of it was very polished, striking and promising. There was so much of this work worthy of attention that I felt bad not being able to realistically give much of it proper journalistic attention. One of the works that got my attention that I thought worthy of singling out was the comic First Law of Mad Science. This work is the creation of Mike Isenberg and Oliver Mertz with art by Daniel Lapham. The premise of the book concerns elite scientist George Baker's new invention with a jaw-dropping promise: electric retinal implants that promise super enhanced vision. The product is quickly made available to much of the population and predictably things don't go as swimmingly for this scientist and his invention as first hoped. The book I got was a limited "work in progress" edition and this first issue hints at ancient civilizations, conspiracy stuff and underground civilizations in future issues. Isenberg's and Mertz' work seems grounded in classic sci-fi and horror literature. I detected hints of Philip K. Dick, H.P. Lovecraft (a quote of whose is a coda to the first issue), William Gibson, Issac Asimov and so on. The sense here is that the creators are raising the bar on the science fiction comic. No doubt this confident, polished and literate work will get the talented Mr. Isenberg, Mertz and Lapham some much deserved attention. S.

Comments