Comic Review: Post Americana #1

Post Americana #1

Image Comics

Writer: Steve Skroce

Art: Steve Skroce & Dave Stewart

In a year like 2020, the mood for a dystopian sci-fi story that seems so close to our own may not be out there. However, Post Americana was just released by Image having its first panels showing the speech of a hateful us president so maybe we’re not so close to this world.

The president I mentioned above, is not who was supposed to be leading. When the world ended all the elite citizenry reached the underground bunker known as The Bubble, which meant for the executive branch of the US government to regroup and fight back. But the members of said branch never got there. Therefore, after rebuilding, the new USA now plans to launch a massive attack on the surface world in order to claim the lands of America as they were. During the president’s speech, a group of saboteurs blows up a lot of The Bubble’s resources in order to postpone the destruction of the surface world. Two of these fly out of the bunker and crash into a land ruled by scavengers and cannibals. With the scavengers, is a woman, Carolyn who appears to recognize the markings on the saboteurs’ ship that reminisces a dark event in her past.

Steve Skroce’s writing sets up the story incredibly well for a first issue. He managed to avoid most of the senseless exposition by putting most of the context we needed in the president’s opening speech, which, as far as where expositions should be placed, is the most acceptable place of all. After that Skroce really focuses on the characters and on his new world we’ve yet to see. The mix of sci-fi apparatus along with the devastated wasteland describes the hierarchy system of this post-apocalyptic world in a flash: whoever holds the firepower and the knowledge to use it, is in charge. I also loved one of the characters introduced in this issue and how he describes life in power for the inhabitants of this wasteland.

Skroce also worked on the line art for this comic and it is beautiful. I’d come across his work before, seeing covers for his graphic novel, Maestro. But to actually read the action and the story being told by his drawings is quite different. He seems to focus on tiny guttural details that give Post Americana more of an organic and gore feel. Living in the world we live in today, this only contributes to making the comic book seem more real. Dave Stewart’s coloring complements Skroce’s art tremendously. Carefully shading every nook and cranny of the characters’ faces, makes a huge difference for the realistic feeling I mentioned above. Also, there are at least two panels with Carolyn in the center of them and just a lot going in the background and both are wonderfully colored to bring the reader out of the story for a second in order to feel what she is feeling.

Lettering is, as usual, quite regular and nothing to take notice of… until it’s not. Sound effects are given their proper spotlight in huge action scenes as well as differences in the characters’ speaking tone, contributing, yet again, to immersion.

Post Americana may have come during a time quite too close to its own fictional world. However, the story progresses a lot differently than what we’re seeing nowadays so it’s up to us to relax, lean back, and read this amazing comic composed by, honestly, a ridiculously talented set of artists.