By Clyde Hall — In one of several memorable exchanges from Cult of Ikarus #1, main character Hunter observes that a new friend appears to have “raided Basquiat’s estate sale”, and the late artist’s Neo-expressionist spirit is indeed alive and well within these pages. Artist Karl Slominski’s stylistically perfect panels and writer Jenna Lyn Wright’s characters echo his blending of text with imagery and the result is a world of harsh truths and lurking dangers. People like Hunter, a foster kid looking for her real parents, and Remy, a bookshop owner earning the Basquiat reference above, are made beautiful in their struggles, mincing few words regarding realities of their off-the-beaten-flagstones world.

Both also, the reader feels, have an abiding appreciation within the grunge of their respective surroundings for the unique, the expressive, and those uncowed either by circumstance or would-be authority. Normally, that could be a disaster slalom for the dangerous trail Hunter’s slipped onto. But, as it turns out, she’s one of those cool, quirky sorts traversing the uncertain, shadowy edges of Normal.

In Cult of Ikarus #1, Hunter escapes her latest children’s home placement with a strange book, one penned in an unreadable language and liberated from personal items she had as an orphaned child entering the state’s care. She seeks information about the book, hoping to unearth clues regarding the whereabouts of her real parents, which leads her to the owner of a very esoteric bookstore. Remy, as it turns out, knew her parents and knows intimately the contents of the book even though it’s written in a dead language.

Their parlay at a local club, backed by the punk musical stylings of rocker Gracie Rage and her band Vicious Kittens, gets interrupted by bloodsuckers. The undead here are long in the eyetooth and brazen enough for carrying swords on their hips into neighborhood bars. The timely intervention by lead singer Gracie Rage offers Hunter an escape from the vampires, one seemingly of the frying pan into blazes sort. But it’s sweetened with a perfect exit line for this premiere issue.

Wright’s handily set up a young and seedy underbelly of urban cool within the narrative, and populated it with underdogs, anti-heroes, and swaggeringly stylish Strigeidida. Fittingly, her dialogue exchanges are crafted with wit sharp enough for bloodletting and with darkly humorous observations. Wright’s script is focused, freethinking, and fast-paced. It doesn’t try fanging off more than it can chew which makes for a satisfying PBR $1 pounder of rebellion and non-conformity. Or, as Remy observes in the issue, an intoxicating whiskey neat for turning new friends into old friends. Wright has struck a power chord of introduction for accomplishing that very thing.

Slominkski’s art serves up Wright’s words with perfect synergy. While Slominski isn’t exactly emulating the Neo-expressionist style mentioned above, he is channeling its aesthetic strongly and in celebration. He gives cohesive contrast to the forces of chaos and freedom in their ripped and riveted casual chic, against the cursed hierarchy of sanguine consumerism decked out in corresponding raven and goth uniformity. The exposition scenes thrum with undercurrents of energy, and the action sequences burst forth beautifully, choreographed in blood, fire, and shattered glass. He’s also given new definition to the term ‘side-eye’.

The lettering work by Taylor Esposito gives good service in keeping the attribution straight and the dialogue flowing without detracting from the keystone expressiveness of the art. He also provides the best sound effects, whether it’s the screams of skidding tires or those of dispatched undead. He even captures the perfect acoustics-to-fonts expression of mirror fractures within the tiled confines of a graffitied club bathroom.

Cult of Ikarus #1 fires right on so many cylinders, it’s hard to admit that the meeting scene between Hunter and Remy following a flashback section left me a tad uncertain. I struggled, briefly, with who these folks were, then how we’d arrived at that point from the opening pages. It was a jolt in an otherwise near-flawless narrative. It didn’t take long regaining the flow but it required a second reading to square everything away.

Overall: With Cult of Ikarus #1, Wright, Slominski, and Esposito bring forth a bold and preternatural protagonist pairing in Hunter and Gracie. These two may be a part of the mystical, magical underground, but they’re also a duo ideal for Lestating the hell out of entrenched Evil Overlords. 7.5/10

Cult of Ikarus #1

Cult of Ikarus #1
Writer: Jenna Lyn Wright
Artist and Colors: Karl Slominski
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
Publisher: Scout Comics
Price: $3.99
Tossed out by her foster family after one-too-many rides home in the back of a cop car, Hunter packs up and sets out on a mission to find out who she is. A mysterious book - her only link to her parents - leads her to discover a covert world of magic and danger running parallel to our own. One punk rock show, two whiskeys, and three vicious vampire assassins later, Hunter's on the run from the ancient, deadly Cult of Ikarus. Hunter came looking for answers. What will become of her once she gets them?

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Clyde Hall (He/Him) lives in Southern Illinois. He’s an Elder Statesman of Geekery, an indie author, a comics fan/reviewer, and a contributing writer at Stormgate Press. He’s on twitter at: (@CJHall1984)