Infinite Vacation 1

I was very negative about Spencer’s THUNDER Agents a while back, but Will tells me he’s good, so I thought I’d give this a go. I’m glad I did.

It starts in spectacularly intriguing style, with someone called Mark getting blown by a stewardess, arresting a paedophile, becoming the President of the US, getting anally raped by a big convict and then executed. That’s a lot to fit into two pages, with no real explanation except claiming his name badge is crucial. When that comes, a few pages later, it’s another surprise, as we switch to a well-handled fumetti mode for four pages as a presenter explains the title in an ad: the opportunity to swap into the life of a you in an alternate reality, paying for the privilege, the price depending on the quality of the life for hire (all tracked through that badge): “Go anywhere, be anything, the Infinite Vacation.”

Mark tells us he averages 9.7 life changes per day (and that 97% of people do this switching thing – is that carelessness or a significant number?), most of them clearly unsatisfactory, boring, mundane, and he is frustrated, desperate for something more without being able to say quite what – and perhaps struggling to afford it? It’s not at all clear how he got half a million dollars for the presidential inauguration life, in that he can’t earn much, nor can renting his life fetch big bucks. Perhaps he inherited a fortune.

The setting here is fresh and full of potential, and the details are clever (for instance a Google RSS feed of events in other Marks’ lives) and fed to us with bright skill. He also starts suggesting an actual story, with Mark’s worry that an awful lot of the alternate Marks he has known seem to be dying, and the images suggest few are natural or accidental. This thread is brought to the forefront right at the end, in a strong cliffhanger.

The art is good too: the drawing is fairly simple and understated yet effective, with some excellent faces and occasional very strong design, and the colouring is wonderful, dominated by a bright, painterly pastel palette, often genuinely daring in its combinations in a way that only someone with an exceptional colour sense can pull off. This really energises even the quiet moments, giving a happy and glamorous atmosphere, well suited to the fantasy vacation theme. How he’ll handle the darker aspects that are surely coming will be interesting – perhaps this is so jolly in appearance so that the contrast will be emphatic.

Maybe I should take another look at THUNDER Agents, or maybe that really was bad and this is good; maybe he’s not so suited to reviving other people’s characters, or has rather fewer good ideas for superhero comics, I don’t know. I did genuinely enjoy this, and felt like there was much more to come. I plan to keep buying, which surprises me after that other title, and I’d be interested in opinions on his other work – Morning Glories is heavily advertised in this, for instance.