Comic Review: Burnouts #1

Burnouts #1

Image Comics

Writer: Dennis Culver

Artist: Geoffo

If you were like me, you were a shy and nerdy do-gooder throughout most of grade school. And, if you were like me and protagonist Andy, you had your first experiences with drugs and alcohol at a high school party. Now tell me, if the first time you smoked pot at a party you saw glowing green aliens inhabit the bodies of partygoers, would you A) chalk it up to a bad trip and head home to apologize to your parents for being an awful child, or B) team up with the local delinquents who can also apparently see these monsters to “save the world” from an invasion? Oh, and the only way to see the aliens is to maintain a buzz on alcohol or drugs. Wait, no, I’m being serious. Don’t close the page!

Burnouts #1 explores this bizarre, if not entertaining premise with our reluctant character Andy joining up with the unfortunately named Roach brothers Dave and Phil, punk chick Jackie (who Andy apparently is crushing on), and the ever-chuckling Manny. There is also Seth, Andy’s other nerdy friend, who has a small role in this issue and who hopefully will be more than just a minor character in the series.

Burnouts does a good job of making you enjoy the characters even though we only get a short time with them. The book opens with the delinquents drinking and smoking outside late one night, and they proceed to heckle and eventually assault a seemingly-innocent old man carrying groceries down the street. This scene gives you an understandably negative opinion of these characters right off the bat. But once you get to the party and see the world through Andy’s drug-hazed eyes, you begin to understand why they act the way they do. Andy himself comes off as the stereotypical meek character who wants to be one of the “cool kids,” but hopefully as the story progresses he’ll become more fleshed-out.

The art is fun, but nothing incredible either. There are lots of wide shot panels with little detail, but that’s not really a negative as the art works well with the silly premise. On top of that, it’s not bad art by any means. It’s a nice, cartoonish style that pops with the material. The aliens have a familiar but unique design, and the panels of Andy staring with bloodshot eyes at the craziness going on around him are all great.

Burnouts is a story that I would have expected to be produced as a straight-to-home-video stoner comedy/horror movie, but instead, we have it here in comic book form. In my opinion, that’s a really good thing. Writer Dennis Culver could do a lot with the comic book medium that might have been lost in another format, and I look forward to seeing what future issues will hold in store for us. Until then, I’ll be looking out for weird glowing creatures every time I have a drink from now on.