Reality Check #1 (Image)

Rating: 3.5/5 – Fun premise and a solid start to a new series.

Reality Check is the story about struggling comic book creator Willard Penn.  Just as he’s about to hit it big with his first issue of “Dark Hour” and his publishers are asking for the next issue, Willard wakes up in the middle of the night and can’t remember anything about it.  He’s forgotten his book’s ideas and concepts, and there’s nothing to be found within his computer files either.  The narrative of the issue is broken up into two parts, one part is telling the story of Willard Penn struggling to make it big while showing the ups and downs in his life, the second part is the story within the actual comic book that Willard has created which follows the life of the hero Dark Hour, who is as Willard describes as, “a looking for love in all the wrong places type of Batman”.

With the issue being broken up into these two story lines, I found myself enjoying Willard’s tale much more than the story dealing with Dark Hour.  Willard’s story feels genuine, and writer Glen Brunswick makes you feel for the character through a series of events that we can all relate to at one point or another.  He has highs and lows, embarrassments, and moments of triumph.  There’s also a longer scene dealing with the death of his brother that felt like it ran a bit too long, but seems as though will have ramifications for future stories.

Reading the comic within the comic about Dark Hour was unfortunately not as engrossing.  This is a Batman-type character like Willard described, who seems to be more concerned with his next “hook-up” rather than fighting crime.  We’ve seen plenty of Batman inspired heroes, but so far Dark Hour is just not that interesting even with the difference mentioned above.  And the dialogue in the “comic” comes off as cheesy and forced.  It almost seems as though the Dark Hour comic is purposefully written poorly.  If that’s the case, then it succeeds.  I feel that the story could have been better served if Dark Hour’s story was just as interesting as Willard, just in a different way.  Hopefully Dark Hour’s story becomes more intriguing in future issues.

The art in this issue is very fitting.  I’m not familiar with Viktor Bogdonavic’s work and after looking him up, he’s had previous storyboard work, but very little comic work.  His art in this issue is surprisingly well done considering his limited work in the field.  If I had to compare it to another artist’s work, I’d compare his work a bit to Howard Chaykin’s, which is a good thing.

Overall I enjoyed this issue and will be back for the second issue.  It has an interesting premise and based on the ending, the book will be taking an even more unique turn.

Reviewed by: Shawn Hoklas – shawn@comicspectrum.com
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