WHITE PICKET FENCES #1 ADVANCE REVIEW

[Blake Petit]

Review by: Blake M. Petit Blake@comixtreme.com
Quick Rating: Very Good

It’s the Cold War – USA versus the Martian menace!

Writers: Matt Anderson & Eric Hutchins
Art: Micah Farritor
Letters: David Hedgecock
Editor: Kevin Freeman
Cover Art: Micah Farritor
Publisher: APE Entertainment

One of the best things about working for a site like Comixtreme is that sometimes, when you’re not looking, someone slips you a preview of a great comic book that no one has heard of yet, and you get to be the one to tell people about it. White Picket Fences is just that book.

This bizarre little comic is a nice mixture of alternate history and retro-science fiction. Little Charlie Hobson is a typical kid in the town of Greenview. He goes to school, plays Army with his friends, and dreams of taking the fight to the horrific “Red Menace” – the aliens from Mars that pose an imminent threat to the American way of life. Anderson and Hutchins have done a wonderful job of taking what, on the surface, reads like an old-fashioned Cold War tale and turning the Soviet menace into one from the stars. The resulting tale reads like a comic book straight from the 1950s, but with an undeniably modern sensibility. This is the kind of story that Mystery Science Theater 3000 would mercilessly skewer, except the story is far too good for Mike and the bots to lampoon.

Building on a really inventive script by Anderson and Hutchins is some wonderful artwork by Micah Farritor. Farritor uses a light, textured style that gives the entire book a feeling of being done in pencil colors, which somehow is absolutely perfect for the story of an idyllic American town living under the threat of Martian extinction. This art is evocative of an animated style, but the gentle strokes of the coloring make it totally unique.

There were a few comics in APE Entertainment’s Free Comic Book Day special I hadn’t sampled before. White Picket Fences was definitely the most intriguing. Having read the first issue, I can happily confirm it’s just as clever and engaging as I had hoped.

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