Black Harvest #1 (of 6)

Written by Josh Howard

Pencils & Cover by Josh Howard

I can’t help but give love and props to my fellow Dallasite comic writer, Josh Howard. I’ve met him, a nice guy, but I don’t KNOW him by any stretch of the imagination like I know other Texas writers and artists in the biz. And I must admit that I have NOT read Dead @ 17. This may be a boon to me because reading another horror/thriller comic by him won’t come off as too much too soon. As the letter by Josh in the back says, he probably should have showed off his versatility and used his success capital (I just coined that phrase off of political capital) to put out a different genre comic. But he didn’t and so here we are.

The first thing you’ll notice about Josh’s books are his women, and their incredible Barbie Doll proportions. It’s almost like reading a Mike Allerd book in that you first have to get over the contrast of art and story content before you can fully enjoy the book. But where Allerd mixes gratuitous violence and Saturday morning cartoons, Josh mixes gratuitous violence and a weird minimalist manga. In the words of Barry the comic book shop guy, “I don’t normally go for drawn porn, but I’ll read this shit cause the story’s so fucking…HEY! Don’t wipe your snot on the glass dipshit.” Our conversation was interrupted by a boy ogling the magic cards behind the counter but you get the idea.

The story is your typical UFO enthusiast, Daniel, finds a girl, Zaya, on the road who’s been missing for three years and then that girl sets someone’s head on fire with her hand. You know that story, it’s been told a million times before. The whole thing takes place in Jericho, Texas where some UFO lights supposedly show up every year. A reporter, your UFO enthusiast, is the main character and is generally waist deep in shit after picking up the girl.  

The mystery is built up as the doctors at the hospital secretively talk about keeping Zaya’s mother out of the loop. But then Zaya kills one of the nurses who was in on the secret. Plus we see a shot of some government types discussing an operative/project we can only assume is Zaya. The mystery has me coming back for more even though Daniel isn’t the most arresting main character. Worth looking into if you liked Dead @ 17 at least.

Rating – 7