The Infinite Vacation #1

Review By: Blake M. Petit BlakeMPetit@gmail.com
Quick Rating: Great

Find a better you – literally!

Story: Nick Specner & Christian Ward
Script: Nick Spencer
Art: Christian Ward
Page 6-9 Production/Design: Kendall Bruns
Design: Tim Daniel
Letters: Jeff Powell
Editor: Jade Dodge
Cover Art: Christian Ward
Publisher: Image Comics/Shadowline

Everybody wants to get away from it all sometimes. In Infinite Vacation, you can do that more completely than ever. With a handy app, you can bid on the life of a you from an alternate dimension that seems to have it better. Mark uses it so much he’s done it all. That is, until he runs into a beautiful girl who isn’t quite interested in taking an Infinite Vacation of her own.

If you want to get my attention with a comic book series, step one is to come up with a unique concept. This is a take on the alternate reality concept that I’ve never seen before. Nick Spencer (you may have heard me ramble on about how much I dig his Morning Glories and Jimmy Olsen yarns) has crafted a really weird universe for this story. The rules are spelled out here, although there seems to be a little bit of wiggle room when it comes to encountering one’s self. Spencer also shows a nice awareness of how societal differences could make some people reject what seems like such a fantastic offer, and uses that to help build an even better story. Mark himself seems like a standard slacker, bouncing around with no direction. In a way, he almost comes across as an addict, willing to do whatever it takes to get his next fix and not really having a goal for himself. His development could be well worth watching.

Christian Ward, artist of Image’s Olympus miniseries, brings his bizarre, wildly colorful style to this title. His art really suits the story perfectly. It’s not really traditional, his use of color and his unique design aesthetic make for a book that doesn’t look like anything else being published. Designer Kendall Bruns also pitches in on a few of the interior pages, using photographs to give us the rundown of what the Infinite Vacation is and how it works through the guide of an advertisement for the company. (How does a multiversal company actually work, now that I think about it? It’ll be interesting to see if Spencer has an answer to that one).

This one will go right up on the shelf next to the rest of Spencer’s work – creative, thought-provoking, and unlike any other comics being published. He’s quickly becoming one of my favorites.

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