Battlemouth

In yet another fortuitous moment on twitter I recently won another set of books that I would like to take the time to tell you about.

Nicholas P. Myers, along with Floating Island Studios (affiliate of Cadre Corner), put out a 3 issue mini series in 2007 (available HERE) titled Harijan. Issue #1 presents the following definition of Harijan: “belongs to the lowest social and ritual class in India, untouchable, castaway, outcast, pariah, Ishmael- a person who is rejected (from society or home). Further explaining that Harijan is litterally translated as “son of god”, but was prescribed to the lower class of the Indian caste system by Ghandi in an effort to create sympathy and acceptance from the rest of the country. It is now apparently looked upon as a patronizing comment.
That being said it seems to make sense that this story is a tale of a band of lower class citizens in a future metropolis known as “Oasis”.

Oasis is split into two main districts…the nice part of town…and the crap part of town. The nice part of town containing of course the more wealthy, but also the upper crust shares their side of town with several menacing corporations that enjoy experimenting on some of the lower class (less important) citizens. The aforementioned, of course, leads to the occasional “disturbance” found frolicking about the ghettos as discarded or unsatisfactory experiments are released as if being thrown in the trash. Enter our rag tag band of “harijan”, David, Virgil, and Apollo.

An eclectic and truly unique group of characters, Virgil appears to be quite a normal young man (at first >_>), while David is a punk rock pierced mouse head on the body of a human with a talent for ranged combat, and Apollo is a short legged, muscular armed braniac with the head of an alien. The descriptions may sound a wee silly, but I assure you they group really does bring a nice mix of characters that each bring their own unique skills to the table.

Issue one throws us right into the action as Virgil races through the alleys with a large ravenous dog monster in tow.
While introduced as a brilliant shot, things get a little out of hand and David drops a tranq dart into a bystander. Upon finally dispatching the beast (through a curious chain of events that you will just have to read about) the two friends decide they can’t just leave the tranquilized girl laying in the street so they pack her up and return her to the base. Questions arise though as strange events seem to follow the team home with their still unconscious new friend prompting us to ask the questions…was this girl just an innocent bystander after all? Who sent a rabid monstrous dog into the city?

Written, penciled, and inked by Mr. Myers, these books are indeed some quality put together stories. I always enjoy perusing artists alley in search of fun indy titles and I think that this is one we might just see more of. The art is crisp and well done, the inking looks professional indeed, and the story line (while I feel like it ended to soon) is well thought and and has a great flow. I recommend everyone go out and at least pick up issue #1, if not all three. Nicholas has done a great job and I look to see more from him in the future!