Stingers #3
Written and Illustrated by Brusha, Tedesco, Waterhouse
Released by: Zenescope
I’ve really enjoyed the Zenescope series I’ve read so far, so I was excited to come across this one even though I haven’t read the first two issues yet. And although the cover doesn’t give much information other than the series is about some strange mutant looking creature and buxom young women, I still thought it would be an interesting tale. And it is…to a point.
The issue begins with a bang as a man is lying face down in the sand while a buxom young woman stands over him, worried over what’s happened to him. After a terrifying nightmare he wakes up in the hospital with visions…visions of a terrifying future that is here. Aliens are invading and mutating the human population so that they can take over the world. And Hawkins, the man from the beach, and the Sherriff, the buxom young woman, are the only ones that can stop it. Meanwhile in another part of town the strange bug like aliens have mutated more people and preparing for their attack on the rest of humanity.
This is one of those series that you can’t just pick up and start reading without having read the other issues. There’s just too much that appears to have happened in the preceding issues, including filling us in on who the characters are and what the mysterious creatures are to just pick up at issue 3. Also…the first few pages are confusing. We see a man lying down on the beach, but the caption boxes are telling completely different story than the images that we see, I’m just not sure how they fit in. But, once we get past the first couple of pages the storyline is fairly easy to follow and we can start to fill in some of the gaps of what happened in the missing issues. Overall it’s not a bad story…just one that you have to read in order.
The artwork in this issue is pretty fantastic. They accurately capture the human form and the colors and shading are well done without being overpowering. Even better are the scenes with backgrounds and cityscapes where they have an edge of realism to them. One of the central points to the story is that when the characters are stung they start to mutate with their veins popping out, and the artist does a great job of capturing those. My one complaint is that all of the women are rather…well endowed. No one can look less than pretty. Even worse to me is the fact that the Sheriff, a woman, is showing a lot of cleavage. It makes me wonder if she captures people by pointing a gun at them or they just get distracted by her chest.
Overall this seems like a great series just one that you have to read in order. The writing is solid and keeps you on the edge of your seat to find out what’s going on and the artwork is stellar…outside of the fact that all of the women are rather busty. I’d recommend this series to fans of sci-fi and fantasy.
