The 12 (Week)Days of Comics Crowdfunding, Day 8: Pilgrim’s Dirge #1

[Since jumping into comics crowdfunding in March, I’ve received 12 projects in paper form. Some have arrived digitally, but I’ll wait until the paper copies arrive because I’m that type of luddite. This “Year in Review” will catalog each one…and I promise to be done by New Year’s Eve!]

Toben Racicot’s 32-page (26 for story!), full color comic is right in my wheelhouse as I am a sucker for dystopian fiction. Perhaps it’s that I came of age, culturally speaking, with movies of the week like “The Day After” and “Threads”. Perhaps it’s because I was a first edition gamemaster for TSR’s “Gamma World” and, later, was exhilarated watching films like Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner”. I probably should have read DC’s Hex back in the day, but I wasn’t that savvy…but the (COVID-inspired? Climate change-inspired?) torrent of post-apocalyptic comics and graphic novels has been awesome. Long story short: when I see I piece of dystopian futuristic fiction, I tend to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Sometimes – more often than I’d care to admit – dystopian fiction is not that good. Pilgrim’s Dirge, however, is pretty darned good.

In this tale, Earth has largely been abandoned by humans…having lost to the alien invaders. There are pockets – compounds, they call them – but nothing significant. And those left are doing everything they can to find enough to barter for a one-way ticket off the planet. Our protagonist, Orin Daniels, is one of those folks. He sent his family off-planet, now is trying to get there himself.

But of course, there’s a catch. The C.O.R.E. (Celestial Orbit Reparation Effort) sent people like Orin back to the planet to beat back the aliens. And in a quiet moment, a stranger shows up asking for his help in retrieving an agent and a bit of magic that the humans hope to integrate into their tech and win the war. (But Orin just wants to be back with his family.)

Circumstances keep changing, with more characters, aliens, action, backstory and a couple (unintentional?) homages to Green Lantern and JJ Abrams’ Star Wars…and our stranger has a new recruit in Orin. Bring on issue #2!

Art and coloring are great. I’m not super-adept at recognizing manga illustration styles, but there’s certainly some high notes in Matteo Leoni’s artwork. More notable is the influence of Fiona Staples’ Saga work. Colorist Martina Bonanni has a strong command of digital coloring tools, wisely sticking with a limited palette to play to the dystopian landscape that Racicot and Leoni present.

It’s a good book! Lots to digest in 26 pages, but worth checking out and…perhaps most telling…making this reader interested in seeing how the story progresses.

As part of the package, Alaire and Toben Racicot added Transmute, a 48-page black and white anthology of four short stories written by Toben and illustrated by Alaire. A very nice bonus, adding significantly to the value quotient on this campaign.