The Cull #1 Review
The Cull #1 Review
Writer – Kelly Thompson
Art & Colours – Mattia De Iulis
Letters – Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Publisher – Image Comics
I love coming to a new book with no idea or preconceptions of what to expect. A completely new title that I know nothing about is one of the few joys we have left in the nightmare that is modern life. Okay, maybe a little over the top. Life isn’t that bad, right? Anyway, that was why I was excited when I came across a new title from Image Comics, The Cull.
Like I say, I’d heard nothing about this book before, had no idea what I was going into, but the title sounded cool, and bonus, it was the first issue! Always a good place to start I find. I think all of that build-up is why I was left a little disappointed after finishing the book. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t a bad book. Not at all. It’s just that nothing really happens. I have to say it’s a pretty brave way to go for a first issue. The issue where you want to suck people in and get them hooked for the rest of your series should hit hard and fast.
But other than a nice tease right at the start and another at the end, the book is really just a collection of some pretty in-depth character intros. This leads me to believe that the story is going to focus on the characters, with the events happening around them playing second fiddle. The story follows five friends and gives us some mild Gooney vibes as they set out early in the morning to film some footage for a movie. This issue sees each of the five friends leaving their houses, meeting at the beach, and going into a cave.
And that’s it. Alright, that’s just me being unfair as the story comes from the backstory of each of the characters as they interact with family and each other to give a lot of backstory which I imagine will all combine and unfold to give us the basis of the story arch. The main back story being one of the characters missing brothers(?), which is seemingly going to be the main driving force of the series. Thompson gets her point across clearly and quickly. Some of the speech is a little overwritten at times, though I have never seen a writer not guilty of that. The story is helped by the art of De Iulis, and is probably my favourite part of the book.
The flow of the art is lovely, and the simplistic page layout makes for an easy read that that works really well for a story that is mainly character conversations. The characters are all well-defined, individual, and distinct in both the writing and art.
With colours that complement the art, thanks to them being done by the same person, and letters from Otsmane-Elhaou that flow well through each panel, everything works together to get the story across successfully.
Overall, it’s a good looking well-written book. The pace of both the art and the story are good and work well together. I just really wish that something had happened in it! That said, the couple of little teases we do get are enough to pique my interest for a look at issue #2, so we’ll see.
Jay is an Auto Electrician and wanna-be writer from Manchester, UK. A long-time lover of comics, books, movies, and TV, he decided to try his hand at writing some of them around 2016. Since then, he has produced and self-published a number of comics, including ALV and the KA Anthology, and also his first novel, Domeinion.
Jay’s first full-length graphic novel was released in 2022, Knights Vs Pirates, with the small press publisher Reckless Hero, and remains a member of the group to this day. Jay can also be found on the video/podcasts The Movie Garage and Man Vs Reality. not action figures.
