Writer: Adam Hodge
Artist: Luke Horsman
Publisher: Self-published, November 2024
There is something quite Buffy the Vampire Slayer about this title. Teenage school life is already difficult enough without having to spend your nights hunting monsters, but that is precisely the situation facing Paxton Porter. By day, he is a typical bullied schoolkid. By night, he becomes a hooded operative who hunts down and eliminates the deadly creatures lurking in the darkness.
Paxton initially works alone, but that changes when he meets his schoolmate Larry Whitlock. Larry convinces him to expand his monster-hunting operation with the help of cheerleader Cambria Morris, who has problems of her own. Cambria secretly suffers from terrifying, hyper-realistic sleep disturbances involving a mysterious green portal and a shadowy figure. Together, the three form D.E.A.L., or Darkness Evaluation and Liberation, setting the stage for a much larger supernatural conflict.
As a first issue, Paxton Porter and the Agents of D.E.A.L. does an impressive job of establishing its characters, premise, and stakes without getting bogged down in exposition. Introduction is always a formidable mountain to climb, but writer Adam Hodge manages to work it into the story naturally rather than stopping everything to explain how the world works. The result is an opening chapter that moves at a brisk pace while still giving readers enough information to understand who these characters are and what they are getting themselves into.
There is also plenty of action, a prerequisite for a first issue. Paxton’s nightly excursions give readers an immediate taste of the kind of supernatural threats the series has in store, while the integration of Larry and Cambria adds another dimension to the story. This first issue doesn’t resolve the immediate conflict and call it a day. As with all good periodically published comics, it leaves plenty of unanswered questions, hints at potential allies and enemies, and suggests that something considerably more dangerous is waiting just beyond the horizon.
Luke Horsman’s artwork complements the story. The comic uses sleek, clean ink lines with thick, heavy outlines around characters and objects. Despite the amount of detail packed into some panels, the strong linework helps direct the eye toward the important elements without making the artwork difficult to follow.
The visual style also has a distinct hyper-stylized quality that recalls artists such as Jamie Hewlett, best known for co-creating the visual identity of Gorillaz with Damon Albarn, as well as Jerry Krahulik of Penny Arcade. The comic is presented in monochrome rather than full color, but it appears to have been designed with digital color in mind before being converted to grayscale. Instead of relying solely on stark black-and-white contrasts, the artwork uses varying shades of gray to provide depth, lighting, and shading.
We liked how Mr Horsman uses colors every time there is a supernatural incident, which functions as a queue for readers to expect something. This is an avant garde cinematic approach (think horror of the girl in Schindler’s List or the sparing use of dangerous red in Sin City).
Messrs Hodge and Horsman understand that action sequences need to communicate movement and escalation, rather than simply presenting a series of attractive images. The sudden appearance of the Red Dragon through a dimensional portal is a particularly effective example. Stark lighting contrasts and aggressive panel framing convey the volatility of an entity attempting to force its way into our world. What initially looks like another one of Paxton’s nightly monster-hunting excursions suddenly becomes something much more dangerous.
By the time the issue concludes with a tease involving Mawmaw and a shadowy, horned antagonist lurking across the void, Paxton Porter and the Agents of D.E.A.L. has established a surprisingly broad sandbox for future stories. There is clearly more going on beneath Paxton’s monster-hunting activities, and the issue gives readers enough hints to make them curious about where everything is heading without giving away the answers.
Paxton Porter and the Agents of D.E.A.L. is a confident first issue that establishes its premise quickly, introduces an appealing cast, and delivers enough supernatural action to keep things moving. Messrs Hodge and Horsman’s collaboration also gives the series a distinctive visual identity, making this an indie title worth keeping on the radar as D.E.A.L.’s adventures continue. Issue 3 of the series is currently the subject of a Kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paxtonporter/paxton-porter-and-the-agents-of-deal-issue-3 and there is more information about the title on Mr Horsman’s website: https://www.lukehorsmancomics.com/paxton-porter . This first issue is free to read here: https://globalcomix.com/read/e69753ee-7858-4764-b76f-78f2dd8118c3/1