A hard-boiled private investigator hired by a powerful and shady entity to solve a high-stakes murder. A heavy-drinking barbarian in a magical realm who loves to fight. Both of these concepts are popular in genre works. You've got tons of PI yarns set in the past or a cyberpunk-style future. Barbian tales encompass characters from Conan to many Dungeons and Dragons customized characters. What, "Subgenre," does in an interesting twist, however, is gives us a man who seems to be stuck between at least these two realities and dealing with familiar foes in both universes. It's a fun zig-zag to go from one reality to the other as we try to figure out what exactly is going on. There is a bit of a meta element, I think, in how it shows stories can be different but similar with our own protagonist breaking some 4th walls a bit to witness this in action.
Matt Kindt is the writer of, "Subgenere," and he has written a lot of great stories so I'm not surprised, that "Subgenre," grabs my attention. Wilfredo Torres provides the art and does a superb job balancing the styles of different realities to make it clear one realm is different from the next, yet strangely similar in other ways. Bill Crabtree's colors also excel at us readers seeing how reality has shifted. I also want to mention that, "Subgenre," is not a standard comic size, but one of those oversized titles that seem to be appearing more lately via such lines as DC's Black Label and DSTLRY's series (although this is published by neither of those, this is a Dark Horse join). It can make it hard to figure out where to store your comic but it does really let the art breathe wonderfully. I quite enjoyed this first issue of, "Subgenre," and would recommend giving it a read!
5 out of 5 stars.
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