Review: Mud Man #1

If you write this book off based on the title then you aremissing out one of the best superhero comics of the year. Mud Man is created,written and drawn by Paul Grist, who on thefirst page expresses his love of comics as a monthly periodical. Not sequentialstorytelling, not a trade paperback, but the monthly comics that a vastmajority of comic readers grew up enjoying. He declares that Mud Man is a return to that art form andthat he is in fact not “writing for the trade” as so many people in theindustry do, but writing for the story. If this opening letter doesn’t convinceyou that this creator is setting out to do something different in modern comicsby returning to its roots, then the first issue will.

The story begins with two teens running around their seasidetown in the south west of England spray painting the everything in sight. It is after all the last day ofsummer break. Their names are Jack Newton and Owen Craig. While tagging up an abandonedhouse Owen stumbles upon what he can only describe as the “Bat Cave.”Unfortunately, he’s not the only one there and is soon chased off. The nextmorning he awakens unsure of what happened the night before during his escape. As he gets readyfor school he makes a startling discovery when his hands turn to mud. At schoolJack prevents Owen from being bullied, but that doesn’t stop Owen from gettinghit by a car. Fortunately he's completely fine, but the driver of the carthinks that he threw mud on his windshield which perplexes Owen even further.

There is something familiar about Mud Man, if has a dash of Invincible and maybe just a hint of Major Bummer. Perhaps that’s the beauty of the book is that it’s sodeep with familiarity that you can pull your own influences out of it and stillbe right. That being said, Grist has something special here. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a superhero book and actually wanted to read the nextissue due to it actually being good. What’s more exciting is that I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Iknow that’s usually the case with comics, but when you know that a book isgoing to have some sort of resolution in six issues you tend to be less impressed by it.

The art is very stylized with thick lines and large handsthat wouldn’t quite work if it didn’t match the art style the way it does. What’sreally enjoyable about the art is that instead of filling pages with black tocover lack of detail or to fill in the page, Grist’s and his colorist BillCrabtree use a crisp white to fill the “dead space” of each page. It gives thebook a classic look, but keeps the modern style for everything else. The artis very good and I only hope that Grist is able to keep up with monthly writingand art duties because both play a key part in what makes Mud Man special.

I don’t say this often, but if you’re going to buy one comicthis week it should be Mud Man. Thisbook is not to be missed and if you don’t grab this first issue I guarantee you’llbe kicking yourself when everyone is talking about it six months down the road and other newspublications are shouting that they knew about it first. This is your chance,right here, don’t miss this book. It’s one of my favorite things as a reviewerto finish a book and know exactly what score to give a book which was the case with Mud Man because it was that damn good.

Score: 5/5

Comments

[Connor]

You've made me wanna read this and i got my comic store to order one in for me coz they ran out

[IronAvenger336]

nice review. I might have to give this a try.

[MAN FROM SPACE]

It’s such a great comic!