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Xenoholics #1

By Andy Frisk
November 13, 2011 - 13:59

Bob’s wife left him, he hasn’t seen his kids, and he’s been having nightmares and seeing images of grey aliens since said grey aliens abducted and probed him. Joining a self help group of fellow abductees and a poorly undercover investigative journalist, Bob meets a wide range of abductees whom he mistakenly assumes are normal outside their experiences, but end up proving that things aren’t always what they seem. When scarred cement crop circles appear in New York City though, everything might turn out to be as it seems for Bob and the threatening aliens who abducted him.

Xenoholics #1, by creative team Joshua Williamson and Seth Damoose, is a satire and humor packed debut issue that takes the darkest sci-fi elements of The X-Files and mixes them with the satirical humor of animated comedies like The Simpsons and Family Guy. Taking their cue from shows like The X-Files though, Williamson and Damoose concentrate on telling a story that is packed with as many potentially interesting characters as it is snarky humor. From a coke snorting pop-rock princess to a hilariously disturbed young wife and mother, the members of Xenoholics Anonymous all believe that they’ve been abducted and/or visited or abused by aliens, except for Kyle. Kyle’s the typical non-believing investigative journalist (in the most satirical sense of the word) who’s looking for a story and a good time. Maybe there is something more to his character, but Williamson isn’t revealing anything yet. Underneath all the humor and satirical jabs at belief, mass hysteria, and the self-help group movement itself (a la Fight Club), something sinister is going on, and the ragtag group of Xenoholics featured here might just end up being the only ones capable of saving the world.

 

Seth Damoose’s art is sufficiently cartoonish here to reinforce the satirically humorousness of the book. His characters are strangely enough proportioned, on purpose, to visually reinforce their characteristics and mindsets. His style fits the tone of the book as well with its bright colors and cartoon-like color scheme. Surprisingly though, for a cartoon style, his artwork is pretty highly detailed. and he takes care to craft visually appealing backgrounds. Both are artistic pluses here.



Xenoholics is a funny, quirky, and scary hit for Image Comics, that follows in a long line of quirky and engaging works recently published by a group that has gone from near obscurity after the comic book bust of the mid 1990s to a Vertigo level respected published.

Rating: 9 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12