WE PROMISED UTOPIA #1, available from Literati Press on August 4th, 2021, imagines what happens when a collective of scientists and activists devise a drastic plan to stave off Earth’s ecological troubles. However, the cure may be worse than the disease.
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The Details
- Written By: Adrian Morales, Robert Holman, Charles J. Martin
- Art By: Eric Osborn, Chloe Elimam, Jonathan Koelsch
- Letters By: Charles J. Martin, Jonathan Koelsch, JEO Creations
- Cover Art By: Nick Hermes
- Cover Price: $5.00
- Release Date: August 4, 2021
Was It Good?
I’m not entirely sure.
As you can see from the credits above, a small army of creatives was involved in this comic, but it’s not the typical situation of chunking out pieces of the work due to time constraints. This first issue is effectively three different stories with different time periods of a much larger story with three very different art and writing styles.
As the pages transition from one time period to the next, it’s pretty clear when a change has happened, so it’s at least easy to follow. However, the art styles are drastically different enough to be very jarring. It may have served this story better to keep the portion of the arc from each time period together in its own issue. As it is, the book feels cobbled together rather than cohesive.
The story becomes a little more confusing when you consider it’s not obvious when the one time period depicting a hunter looking for food during an apparent ice age is happening. It appears to be post-apocalyptic, but is it second in the order or the third, or is it happening at the same time as the “utopia” but in a different location?
As for the story, the writers and artists do their best to lay out how society changes so radically over the course of several thousand years. The story mostly works, but you really have to tease out what’s happening in the present as parts of the conversation with the lead character happen through snippets of conversation with her assistant and quick text blurbs with somebody over the phone.
You get a lot of information if you pay very close attention to what’s happening and fill in the gaps with assumptions, but you don’t get any clear introductions to the characters. You have to use some guesswork to figure out what’s going on, and that’s a down point when you have an intricate first issue focusing on a complex topic.
In short, I’m not sure if this first issue was “good” in the traditional sense of a comic. The individual pieces are executed well enough, but the way their spliced together may throw off your reading experience.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
The story is one, large narrative broken up into three distinct stories.
Story one focuses on a man, a hunter looking for food, and other survivors in what looks to be a post-apocalyptic ice age. The time period is not explicitly defined other than it’s in our future.
Story two is in the near present and focuses on Isabel Bari. Her role and position are not clear, but she occupies a position of power and influence with ties to celebrities, influencers, and the White House. She seems grimly determined to implement a plan to “save” the world by forcing a new economy system reliant on carbon footprint credits. There’s a page at the end of the comic with a detailed explanation of the plan, including helpful charts.
Story three takes readers 3,000 years in the future and focuses on a man named Mangus. He seems important, but it’s not clear what he does. The world at this point looks clean, futuristic, and worry-free, but Mangus is concerned it’s all about to collapse. A mystery is introduced about a secret case file created by Isabel Bari, but it’s not clear what the mystery is about other than Mangus is concerned something is wrong.
We conclude the issue with the main character in each time period on the verge of change.
Final Thoughts
WE PROMISED UTOPIA #1 attempts to tackle a sweeping story spanning several millennia about a group determined to save the Earth from ecological disaster… by any means necessary. Using multiple writers and artists to cover different millennia is a bold creative choice, but it may not be everyone’s cup of tea.
Score: 7/10
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