Summary: With her father in shackles on a slave world a woman named Kristiss turns to the best smuggler she knows to get him out...Lando to the rescue!
Plot: In this prequel to the film Solo Rodney Barnes, who previously wrote for the Boondocks and Everybody Hates Chris, gives us a look at the early adventures of Lando and Ellethree. While I do love Lando, I once dressed up as him on Halloween, and Barnes does nail his voice the plot so far of Lando smuggling a woman's father out of captivity seems a little flat. Both Ellthree and Kristiss talk to Lando about how he should feel obligated to help the subjugated and when Lando blows them off their reactions are both meant to make the reader feel sympathetic to them and believe that Lando is being a jerk...but I just can't help siding with Lando and his, "And this is my problem why?" attitude and that's not a great way to get me to buy into the story. Unlike Lando who feels uninterested due to monetary reasons, I think I'd feel more invested if Kristiss and her people were more developed, all we got was one scene of her father in the slave camp communicating with Kristiss and then it was off to the races and that's just not enough. The Empire isn't real so you can't rely on the fact that I know they are the bad guys in order to get me to feel rightuous about breaking up a slave camp, you have to do the leg work and make me feel the plight of the people affected, and that just didn't happen. I want to like this book, but I'm not sure if I'll pick up the next issue.
Art: Paolo's art is the high point for me here, it's slick, energetic, colorful and it truly captures the feel of Solo with out it looking phototraced. And although it is stylized, Lando is definitely recognizable as Donald Glover's take on the character which was fantastic.
Grade:6/10

Summary: Four teenagers with haunted pasts find themselves given full scholarships to a school named Blackwood College and find themselves enrolled in classes steeped in the mystic arts.
Plot: While the basic premise might be familiar; a group of students at a school for magic who don't know each other get thrown together in the face of a plot by a dark lord but right from the moment these students get off the train you know this isn't Harry Potter. I've been a fan of Dorkin for years and although early on he really made his name with his fantastic sense of humor he's really shown he has a definite knack for horror in more recent years with his work on Beasts of Burden. It may seem odd to say but I really think that back ground in humor is what makes him so perfect at horror, in both cases you have to really build the back ground in order to achieve the climax the only difference being the emotion you're attempting to elicit. In the case of this story Dorkin builds to that moment beautifully by letting characters and even the setting tell the story. This naturalistic pacing really allows the narrative to gain momentum in a way that feels completely true to life and then builds the characters and the spook around that. This brilliant layering of storytelling is where Blackwood stands out, it easily could have been yet another dark Harry Potter, a subversion that's a dime a dozen at this point, but instead has created a cast of characters that feel real and engaging in their own right and a mystery that is unique and leaves you wanting more.
Art: Veronica Fish is another name you might not normally think of when you think horror, having spent most of her career penciling the adventures of Archie and his buddies, but s your eyes move from panel to panel, she brings out these vibrant details in each scene that really pull you in to the world. And although I usually think of more muted colors for creating a solid horror mood her mix of bright hues really works here, giving it a true other worldly feeling that you wouldn't think possible with the likes of day glow pink.

Grade:10/10