What is the solution to the scarcity of natural resources? Forget the wind turbine or solar, they are the corpses of the old gods according to the authors of We Only Find Them When They're Dead. So board the Vihan II to find out more…
In search of the gods
We Only Find Them When They're Dead is set in the distant future and on another planet but the problems are very current. Inequalities between human beings continue to grow. Humanity no longer has raw and energetic materials, it went into space to find some. But, there is no ore left on the asteroids so, for three generations, necropsic ships have been using the corpses of gigantic gods and goddesses that regularly appear in the vacuum of space. However, no one knows how they appear and why they are still dead. Georges Malik, captain of the Vihan II is one of those scavengers in charge of dismembering these titans but he hides a nobler goal: to find a living god to understand all these mysteries. In We Only Find Them When They're Dead, he takes you and his crew of four on this quest. Jason Hauer is the flight engineer and companion of his boss. His sister Ella Hauer is the thanato, the specialist of divine corpses. She also disapproves of this relationship. Alice Wirth watches over the stewardship but pinches for Georges. With this crew in search of the unknown but with complex human relationships, we think of the great hours of space opera like Star Trek or Foundation. This book also evokes pirate stories with these smugglers' ships and a captain hiding his one-eyed eye by a cloth.
A motionless journey
The first thing that stands out when opening this new HiComics title is its visual splendor. The Italian cartoonist Simone Di Meo had already delighted the writing in the crossover between the Ninja Turtles and the Power Rangers but he reaches in We Only Find Them When They're Dead a whole new level. Adept of digital drawing, he offers a very new use of this tool. Not trying to imitate pencil or brush, he fills the entire page with both bright and dark compositions. Flashes of light pierce an entirely black background. The first goddess that appears is worthy of an ancient Roman statue. In front of this beauty, the reader is then moved when vessels the size of mosquitoes cut the corpse with a laser letting out blocks of flesh. We also feel from the first page that it is for him a series apart because the book is dedicated to his mother who died following covid. It is not a commissioned work but it is entirely invested in the story. Moreover, the screenwriter Al Ewing is far from being outdone by proposing a debut worthy of a great film: after a short introduction to introduce the universe, the title extends majestically on a double page and a fair and poetic text plunges us into a unique atmosphere. It keeps the reader in suspense by the strength of the characters. We are surprised by the universe and then conquered by the adventurers of Vihan II and the one who chases them. This is not a surprise because the writer is on the rise after an acclaimed stint at Marvel on the Hulk series. In this first volume, Le Voyageur, a social element is also present. Workers are spied on and cannot speak freely. In the middle of a cloud of ships, the Vihan II team watches for the appearance of a goddess to throw themselves on the corpse first. The gold miners of our time have become corpse butchers who are willing to fight to feed their families. This prospecting is controlled by the escort, space customs officers. A breach of the rules is settled by laser. The captain knows this well because his parents were killed by a controller who holds a stubborn grudge against him. The big companies reserve for themselves the most beautiful parts of the gods, leaving the independents only offal. Drop your sunscreen and run to the bookstore to discover We Only Find Them When They're Dead. Once the first page is read, you will be like us conquered or conquered by this unique universe. Indeed, Al Ewing weaves a story mixing an ecological fable, the fight for survival and the spirit of adventure. This tale of action and reflection is propelled into a dark space by the talent of Simone Di Meo. You can find on these links the chronicles on Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers of the same cartoonist and Invisible Kingdom another science fiction series at HiComics.
