Mayday #2
Writer: Curt Pires
Artist: Chris Peterson
Publisher: Black Mask Studios
Release Date: May 27, 2015
Cover Price: $3.99
This psychedelic, thinking man’s coke binge is teetering on the edge of darkness, inches away from the full plunge.
With Mayday 2, Pires and Peterson attempt to up the ante of the already crazy plot of this book and, pull off some dizzying, high speed, narrative turns. For the most part, they pull it off.
Pires is a writer unlike any other. The deep thinking, satirical, self-aware Hunter S. Thompson of the comics world. His scripting defies conventions (see: the last two pages of this issue) and stretches the limits of this medium to their breaking points. Mayday is no different.
Pires employs a variety of tricks that keeps the reader on their toes from linear note type callouts to almost entirely black pages, stark and poetic in their minimal but immensely impactful execution. Kleio and Terrance’s relationship almost seems unnatural, like they’ve bonded too quickly until you realize that people are like metal. With the right amount of heat and pressure (satanic in this case) they’ll melt and solder together in any way they can even if it means weaving their way through gun shops, high speed car rides, pentagram maps and shootouts.
That’s a lot to unpack without the mentioning the spiders, knives and pig people all included in this issue, too. Somehow though, despite how dense, intellectual and philosophical this book is, it flies by. A carefully calculated and executed thing that transcends “comic” in a way while still grounded in the medium by Peterson’s exquisite, if rough, art.
Peterson is a near perfect match for Pires. His sense of pacing, space and perspective keeps the book feeling fast and weightless while still making an impact. I’m a big fan of the segmented approach, the differing boxes all toying with perspective and coyly concealing the full impact of a scene until it’s all freed moments later. I will say, however, that I think there was one big misstep in this issue: the weird red/white font that appears during the “trip” segment. It doesn’t match any other element on the page and looks like a poor man’s placeholder for some better executed version of the same thing. In the grand scheme of things, though, it’s a small misstep that’s over in a matter of seconds simply because the book is so good. Then, by the end, Peterson pulls you into this crazy left turn Pires has written in the best way possible. No other artist could do what Peterson did on those last two pages better, I think.
Less comic book and more meditation on western culture through a self-aware satirical lens, Mayday is a book I think I’ll remember for a long time. Something between a philosophy text book and Fast and the Furious does Fear and Loathing mashup, it’s a smart thing that demonstrates the strengths of the creators here in the best ways.
Artist: Chris Peterson
Publisher: Black Mask Studios
Release Date: May 27, 2015
Cover Price: $3.99
This psychedelic, thinking man’s coke binge is teetering on the edge of darkness, inches away from the full plunge.
With Mayday 2, Pires and Peterson attempt to up the ante of the already crazy plot of this book and, pull off some dizzying, high speed, narrative turns. For the most part, they pull it off.
Pires is a writer unlike any other. The deep thinking, satirical, self-aware Hunter S. Thompson of the comics world. His scripting defies conventions (see: the last two pages of this issue) and stretches the limits of this medium to their breaking points. Mayday is no different.
Pires employs a variety of tricks that keeps the reader on their toes from linear note type callouts to almost entirely black pages, stark and poetic in their minimal but immensely impactful execution. Kleio and Terrance’s relationship almost seems unnatural, like they’ve bonded too quickly until you realize that people are like metal. With the right amount of heat and pressure (satanic in this case) they’ll melt and solder together in any way they can even if it means weaving their way through gun shops, high speed car rides, pentagram maps and shootouts.
That’s a lot to unpack without the mentioning the spiders, knives and pig people all included in this issue, too. Somehow though, despite how dense, intellectual and philosophical this book is, it flies by. A carefully calculated and executed thing that transcends “comic” in a way while still grounded in the medium by Peterson’s exquisite, if rough, art.
Peterson is a near perfect match for Pires. His sense of pacing, space and perspective keeps the book feeling fast and weightless while still making an impact. I’m a big fan of the segmented approach, the differing boxes all toying with perspective and coyly concealing the full impact of a scene until it’s all freed moments later. I will say, however, that I think there was one big misstep in this issue: the weird red/white font that appears during the “trip” segment. It doesn’t match any other element on the page and looks like a poor man’s placeholder for some better executed version of the same thing. In the grand scheme of things, though, it’s a small misstep that’s over in a matter of seconds simply because the book is so good. Then, by the end, Peterson pulls you into this crazy left turn Pires has written in the best way possible. No other artist could do what Peterson did on those last two pages better, I think.
Less comic book and more meditation on western culture through a self-aware satirical lens, Mayday is a book I think I’ll remember for a long time. Something between a philosophy text book and Fast and the Furious does Fear and Loathing mashup, it’s a smart thing that demonstrates the strengths of the creators here in the best ways.
A Look Inside
