Wicked Things #1 is out March 18, 2020. — **Wicked Things #1** is out March 18, 2020.

By Zack Quaintance — The Eisner Award winning team from Giant Days — writer John Allison and artist Max Sarin — have returned with a new series from publisher BOOM! Studios. If you are unfamiliar with Giant Days, first and foremost — shame on you. That book was arguably one of the best modern slice of life comics, certainly within the direct market, before it came to an end last year. It was a hilarious take on a group of friends in college, and I loved it. It’s well worth checking out, but don’t just take my word — it has the prestigious awards wins and critical love to re-enforce any strong recommendation.

Shaming aside, I bring all of that up as a means of pointing out that this title will feel right away familiar to fans of that book. The first act of Wicked Things #1 is packed with the dry wit that made Giant Days so consistently and subtly rewarding. There are tons of little jokes that fly past as characters banter (read too fast and you’ll miss them), piling up and creating an amusing and smart tone for the new book before its plot starts to push us deeper into the proceedings. That the creators were able to do all that and still get across enough exposition to orient us in the story is really impressive.

So, what then is the story here? The name certainly doesn’t give much away. Well, the concept of this comic is just as smart and funny as the writing and the visual gaggery that make the execution a blast. Wicked Things is a comic about a young girl who is essentially a modern day Nancy Drew. But the concept doesn’t stop there. In the world of Wicked Things, there is a niche culture/cottage industry that has sprung up around teen detecting, and it’s a far more realistic and mundane one than old novels and TV shows and movies would have audiences believe. There are trade journals, petty rivalries, varied levels of success, and industry awards...as there might be in the real world for something like advertising copywriters or plumbers or whatever. The world of teen detectives as portrayed by Wicked Things #1 reminded me of shows like the Venture Brothers, which extrapolates similar everyday ideas within the world of super scientists (that show directly parodying Johnny Quest), creating a familiar yet still interesting canvas to for its characters to play on. Past that, Wicked Things #1 is also a murder mystery but you probably knew that from the moment I said this was about being a detective at any level.

Is it good? I think all fans of Giant Days will agree that it is, though the rate of jokes and clever asides falls somewhat sharply in the second half of the book, as the story must do the more demanding work of building its plot engine. It’s maybe not fair to say all that, given that Giant Days had already found its voice as a webcomic before the first issue went to print in 2015. It then had 40-some more issues to build moving relationships and backstory between its character. It’s the same creative team, so one can’t help but draw the comparison, but still.

In the end, I liked Wicked Things #1 quite a bit, and the strength of the first half alone sold me on the series moving forward. Allison is a writer who at this point I’ll read any of his books, and I have including By Night (a collaboration with Christine Larsen), and the recently concluded Steeple (which he drew himself). This book gets a boost past both of those given the history of excellence the creative team has when working together.

Overall: With Wicked Things #1, the strength of the first half alone sold me on the series. The rate of jokes falls somewhat sharply in the second half of the book, as the story must do the more demanding work of building its plot engine, but the concept is clever and the characters clear. I recommend this one, especially for fans of the creators’ last book, Giant Days. 8.0/10

Wicked Things #1
Writer: John Allison
Artist: Max Sarin
Colorist: Whitney Cogar
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Price: $3.99
Solicit: The Eisner Award winning team of John Allison and Max Sarin return to the world of Giant Days for a new series about everyone's favorite child detective; Charlotte Grote. Nineteen year old Charlotte Grote has her whole life ahead of her; headed straight to Oxford and a future as a real detective-until she's framed for murder! Given the choice between going to jail basically forever or joining the police, Lottie decides to hit the beat, all while trying to find the real murderer. Lottie may have been running rings about the police since her 9th birthday, but she's never been on this side of the security tape. Could the future of law enforcement be 5'2" with an extremely strong bangs game? Yes. Very yes.

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.