A comiXologist recommends:
The Spire #1

by: Matthew Burbridge

As far as series openers go, the first issue of The Spire is everything an excellent beginning needs.  It has action, weirdly cute creatures, weirdly spooky creatures, and vaguely aristocratic Victorian undertones.  There isn’t a single moment that doesn’t continually add to the curious nature of this world.  I have a lot of feelings about it, but let me sum up the book as succinctly as possible.

The Spire is a massive, spindly tower-city that rises out of the center of an even more massive desert.  Within the Spire, is a population of a small country made up of humans, and genetically different non-humans that are looked down upon by their human “superiors.”   They even have their very own racial slurs to refer to them: “Skews.”

Sha is the last of a sub-tribe within the larger populace of the various non-humans.  Her life is filled with discriminations and mistreatment by the people of the city, made only more complicated through her profession as the Commander of the City Watch.  

To add insult to injury, a new Baroness ascends to the throne. One who harbors no love for the non-humans of the Spire.  And it is shortly after the Baroness expresses her prejudices to Sha, that a string of vicious murders begin littering the streets of the city.  Sha has her work cut out for her.

And that was just the first issue!

I loved the characters, the energy, and the casually ignored post-apocalyptic setting!  Nobody’s sitting around wondering what happened to the world, or how it came to be just a city in a desert.  At first I wondered.  The setting is set perfectly as well-rendered reader bait. Before anyone can notice it isn’t going to be explained, we care more about the events in the present than what occurred before.   That is the strength of Si Spurrier’s narrative in the hands of “Fraggle Rock’s” Jeff Stokely. These two talents should never be apart.

This series is going to be a lot of fun.

[Read The Spire #1 on comiXology]