Writer: Antony Johnston
Artist: Christopher Mitten
Company: Oni Press

The post-apocalyptic wasteland may not be a great place to live… but it’s a rich place for stories, and Antony Johnston and Christopher Mitten have come up with an interesting new twist on the ruined Earth genre in their new ongoing series Wasteland. Johnston’s plot and characters may seem comfortably familiar, with a ruined but recovering civilization reminiscent of our own, a stranger from the desert and a series of dangerous mutants from the wastes, but look a little deeper and you’ll start to see the layers of the book. Psychic abilities, several religious beliefs and different interpretations of the “Big Wet” that caused the disaster, all playing out through a cast of interesting characters with moody, effective artwork from Mitten makes for an intriguing set of opening issues.

The opening shot of this book, a man in tattered rags walking through a wasteland, is one that writer Antony Johnston has been carrying with him for fifteen years, according to the text piece in the back of the book. It’s a simple visual, and from that visual it would have been easy to draw any number of simple, and probably short, stories. Instead, Johnston has gone the other route, and created something that has the look and feel of an epic in the making. At the outset, things are small, as chance meetings between a few characters start the ball rolling, but as the stories progress, it seems likely that Wasteland will play out on a larger canvas.

Beginning with the introduction of a couple of characters with unusual abilities and the destruction of a settlement, Wasteland puts the lead characters on a journey through harsh terrain to the city of Newbegin, where conflicts of a religious nature are already brewing. It is clear that Abi and the rest are not headed into a safe haven, but out of the wasteland and into the dangers of a more urban enviroment.

While the stakes of the conflicts are high, questions of survival in a harsh environment or the stability of the status quo against a rising rebellion, the actual heart of the conflicts is always about people. The tension between Abi (the town sheriff), Jake (Abi’s boyfriend) and Michael (the stranger) is intriguing and multi-layered, as Jake is not only threatened by the connection Abi and Michael have but worry and anger over the trouble magnet nature of “ruin runners” like Michael. The religious trouble brewing in Newbegin is clearly not just because of a society built on haves and have-nots but also drawn from the egotism of a self-styled prophet and leader and his cronies in the government.

To these intriguing characters, Johnston adds a rich and developing mythology. The first issue contains a great deal of bartering with a stranger from the wasteland, giving Johnston excuses to explain what’s valuable in this new world as well as what dangers face a traveler or a settlement. In issue two, the “Sunner” priest tells that religion’s tale of The Big Wet, the catastrophe that turned the Earth into a wasteland, and it’s a fascinating mix of Judeo-Christian elements, Native American spiritualism and the pantheist teachings of Greek and Roman religion. Throw in the paranormal abilities manifested by Abi and Michael and the existence of the Sand-Eaters and you’ve got a well-thought-out post-apocalyptic setting with a few fantasy and science-fiction trappings and plenty of unanswered questions for the future.

Giving life to this rich setting and these interesting characters is Christopher Mitten, a mainstay of Oni Press whose previous work runs the gamut from off-beat detective fiction to hard-boiled espionage to pulp adventure, and Wasteland represents another genre tackled and some of his best work so far. His art can be a little hard to follow on some of the action sequences, but in general it’s got a crisp style that perfectly captures the arid surroundings and grizzled characters living in them. His character work reminds me in a lot of ways of Phil Hester’s artwork, and he’s great at the small character moments, but doesn’t skimp at all when called upon for a full-page splash of the city of Newbegin or a charge by the Sand-Eaters.

Whether you’re more interested in mutants battling scrappy humans in a desert wasteland or the complex politics of a world that has gone kaboom, Wasteland is definitely worth a look. Don’t just take my word for it, though… you can find preview pages, character sketches and even an ’80s techno-style theme song at The Big Wet.com, the book’s official promo website.