If you’re in a hurry and don’t want to read all the drivel I’ve written, but still need an excuse to go out and buy the book well that’s fine. Here’s the Hollywood pitch that I couldn’t let go of while reading: Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, set after the apocalypse…with monsters…and some superpowers. Curious?

You should be.

Prologue: A welcoming to the world of Wasteland

As Saturday started to wind down at Comic-Con 2007, I was making another circuit of the con-floor past the Oni Press booth. I’d already spent a fair chunk of change there but another book caught my eye. I guess that’s why if you know Ben Templesmith, you have him do the cover of your book. They kind of stand out like that. So I saunter over and casually start to leaf through it, already calculating in my head how much money I’ve got left to spend.

One of the nice guys working the Oni booth comes over to inform me that both the author and the artist will be signing, right here, if I can hold out about twenty minutes. Few things excite me more than having a book signed by author and artist. It’s hard for me to pass up that kind of opportunity.

Not one to squander my hard-earned comic budget on just any old book, I ask the smiling Oni employee what Wasteland is about. I don’t remember his answer – there was a lot going on at the ‘Con to distract me – but my ears dashed into focus when he mentioned the genre: post-Apocalyptic fiction.

"I’ll be back in a bit." I said rather grimly, worried that the book might not be worth braving the crowded con-floor for the nearest ATM. When I return, there stand the promised creators, Antony Johnston and Christopher Mitten. The table they’re supposed to sign at is still occupied so we have our own little impromptu signing right on top of the other Oni books. I found myself the proud owner of Wasteland Vol. 1 and, a year later, now that I have a website, I can tell you good people all about how great a book it really is.

The story-tellers waste no time setting an enigmatic scene: "One hundred years after the big wet. Somewhere in America…" Already this has diverged from the realm of popular Post-Apocalyptic fiction, which is flooded with movies and books that all deal with the horrors of the end of civilization through zombies, vampires, and disease. The standard formula, I’ve found, normally follows a small band of survivors as they try to live long enough to reestablish society, only to fail and die gruesome deaths or find another group of survivors who've already accomplished the goal of rebuilding so that the end credits rise happily as everyone settles in together on a promising commune. Wasteland is a departure from this construction.

The opening line alone promises a story a full century after the destruction of Earth. Now that's interesting; focusing on the "post" in post-Apocalypse, instead of the “Apocalypse”. Personally, I love the idea of the actual Armageddon as a mythology, shrouded in the mysteries of the past, instead of as a potential catastrophe of the future. Due to this clever setting, the story itself is full of mystery. What was the ‘big wet’ that destroyed everything? What is “The Tongue,” that only some people seem to understand? And why do only a select few have strange abilities, used sparingly because of the apparent cost to their own bodies? This is also an extremely cinematic comic. It constantly shifts time and place to show different scenes around the world that all relate to Antony’s central plot without the burden of a single principle character; Antony’s chosen, instead, a slew of bad-asses, some who appear good and some unquestionably bad and some who are a mystery.

After reading the book I realized something: Volume 1 is just the warm-up. I’m referring to the story itself and not Mitten’s art, an artist who clearly needs no warming up (more on the art later). Antony will be the first to tell you he’s been tossing around the idea of Wasteland for years (Check the site on Sunday if you're skeptical), and it shows. For one, all the characters actually talk like they’ve known each for awhile and not since just the first page. The dialogue is one of the strongest aspects of this book. Antony invents swear words and original slang that hint at dramatic changes in society. It's obvious that each character has a history, whether it is known by other characters or not, and much of the fun of the book is trying to catch pieces of the back-story as the main plot progresses.

People may accuse the plot of being decompressed, but to me Volume 1 read as the first piece of an epic by an author who knows where he's going and is too invested in the complete story to rush any of its component parts. Fine by me, I say; just keep the installments coming.

Christopher Mitten, who pencils and inks Wasteland, uses one of the coolest, most underutilized techniques in the comic industry today: blurring. If things are close to the "lens" in the foreground and not necessarily the focal point of a panel, then Mitten takes them slightly out of focus, just as the images would appear in film. The effect adds an amazing level of depth and realism to Mitten’s angular and dramatic artwork that, even without the captivating blurring, would be entirely sufficient. Mitten is a versatile artist whose regular line work flows smoothly into more abstract styles when necessary, at times even reminiscent of cave paintings -- though cave paintings done by a high caliber artist -- to relate the mythological history of The Big Wet. All the little touches in Wasteland -- the palpable brightness of the sun on the earth; the blurring, and the sweeping movement of characters within the panels serves to elevate the total visual effect to a much higher level.

Now, I present you with a very dangerous link. This link will take you to the official website of Wasteland where you’ll be able to download the entire first issue for free. How could that be so dangerous, you ask? Well, as I said before, I have a feeling that this story is going to be epic. If you read the first issue you'll probably be on board for the long haul. Now that will probably have benefits, like the fantastic story displayed through beautiful art and the snob-factor you’ll get, years from now, when you can make the claim that you read it when it was first coming out. Now you’ve got no excuse to avoid trying this book, unless your excuse was that you're terrified of awesomeness.

I didn’t think so.