The Last Call, Vol. 1
By Vasil Lolos
Oni Press, 136 pp.
Rating: T + (Older Teens)
Alec and Sam are two typical teenage guys. They like loud music, sticking it to the man, being rebellious, sneaking out at night, and generally being “bad”. Unfortunately for them, it seems that they’re conservative parents may have been right, listening to the devil’s music (a.k.a. metal) will doom them to hell… or at the very least hell’s version of Amtrak.
Vasil Lolos throws your right into the mix with little to no prep what so ever. One minute you’re in the car with two teens who are blasting metal from their speakers, then, suddenly, they’re on board a massive train full of demons and monsters. Don’t worry if you feel a little lost at first, so do Alec and Sam–your confusion in theirs. Of course things just go from bad to worse for the two as they have the unfortunate luck of bumping into the ticket checker, who promptly throws Alec through a window, leaving poor Sam to fend for himself on a train full of fiends. And yes… it gets even worse from there, as Sam soon finds himself as the only witness to a murder aboard the train, and host to a living shadow.
The story is surprisingly fun once it gets rolling. The scenes of the two boys in the car are a little blah, and they do drag on for about twenty pages or so, but once they board the train, the pace really picks up and the fun stuff begins. Sam spends most of the time trying to come to terms with his new location, swept up in the different happenings aboard the train against his own wishes. Despite the large amount of inaction on Sam’s part, and despite all the fretting he does, he still manages to come across as a fairly likeable kid, just a bit frayed at the edges. Then again, under the circumstances, you can hardly blame him.
Lolos’ artwork is really fantastic. His monsters range from very human to weirder creations that actually make me think of some of the critters from the Hellboy 2 ads, only with a 1920’s sense of style. These monsters aren’t in loin clothes or rags, they’re dressed to the nines in outfits that look like they’d be right at home in a F. Scott Fitzgerald story: furs, bow ties, I think I saw a monocle or two in the background at one point. I suppose the fashion he was going for might have been from a different era, but it definitely evoked the Jazz Age in my mind. Beyond the snazzy character designs, Lolos’ art is nicely detailed and his characters are all wonderfully expressive, whether it’s the terrified look that Sam wears for most of the time, or the sinister grin upon the overweight Meredith’s face, it’s all wonderfully done.
I really enjoyed this, a lot more than I thought I might. When it comes to western comics I tend to fall into ruts, only buying books from tried and true names and sometimes I forget just how fun it can be to find a new name and be blown away by their work. This is definitely one of those cases, and of course it’s Oni who does it once again. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson after being introduced to people like Bryan O’Malley and Corey Lewis thanks to Oni, but no, I still tend to over look their OGN’s. The Last Call is a fun book and fans of “Through the Looking Glass” type of tales should definitely give it a look and do so soon, the second volume is due out at the end of the month.
Volume one of The Last Call is available now.
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