Creator/Writer: R.F.I. Porto
Pencils/Inks: Gavin P. Smith
Colors: Tim Yates
Publisher: Blue Juice Comics
The Accelerators is the debut title from Blue Juice Comics. It is a series about time travel, and what would happen if you had the ability to travel forward in time, but were unable to go back. The time travel devices are hand held rings nicknamed “donuts” that were found in the 1960’s and studied by a special team that included physicists and some military.
The storyline of issue #2 focuses on Bertram, a captain of the military and rogue member of the special “donut” studying team from 1965, and Spatz, an ordinary kid, and a victim of wrong place wrong time from 1991. After they find themselves captured and sold to a fighting arena by “travelers”, they are taken to the dungeon of arena where the GAMES! are held. There they not only have to worry about how they are going to get back to their original lives, but also surviving the travelers favorite past time, the arena battle royal games. It has suspense, drama, and like all great comics, ends with a cliffhanger that leaves you wanting more!
The thing that I like most about this title is while there is so much going on, and at least two different stories going simultaneously, there is no confusion. A feat that is fairly difficult to pull off in the comic world. This is achieved both by the writing style of RFI Porto and the illustrations of Gavin Smith. Porto’s writing captures the characters time periods perfectly while using phrases and expressions to let you know they don’t belong in the future. He also gives the right amount of dialogue for each scene. In the beginning when Bertram and Spatz are imprisoned in the dungeon of the arena they talk freely about where they come from and how they hope to return to their past lives, however once they are thrown into the arena for the battle royal little dialogue is used and the reader relies more on the drawings of Smith to know what’s happening in the arena.
Smith and colorist Tim Yates do a wonderful job of telling the story of Bertram and Spatz through picture. Smith, who normally just works with black and grey drawings, does awesome illustrations of the characters and their surroundings, but doesn’t over power them with heavy lines or shading, which is unusual for most black and grey artists. Yates does a fantastic job at contrasting dark and bright images together to give you popping focal points that leave my eyes in awe and not wanting to turn the page. Together the two of them give this comic some of the best artwork I’ve ever seen for a new comic, let alone one from a fairly new publishing company.
Blue Juice made a great decision by picking up this title. For a book that has not really had much publicity it has been doing exceptionally well. It is available to order at all comic stores and you can also get it digitally delivered if you prefer to read your comics on an electronic device. I would recommend picking up an actual copy though, I have read the second issue both digitally and in paper form and I think the comic form is by far superior. This is a title I would recommend to anyone. It has so many different layers and so many directions it can go, and regardless of which direction they choose it can only lead to good things!!
4 out of 5 nerds
Irwin Fletcher
I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.
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