Take a Trip to Border Town

Back when I started this blog, I was expecting to write more about comics than I actually have (or rather, I expected to write about a wider variety...hey, I've found my niche and I've stuck with it).  But last week I picked up the first issue of a new series that truly moved me to put fingers to keyboard so I could sing its praises.  And I'll admit, the fact that I've known the artist for quite a few years is part of the motivating factor.

Like myself, Ramon Villalobos was one of the earliest staff members over at the DC2 fanfiction site, and was even kind enough to do the cover for Weird Western Quarterly #1.  Right from the get-go, you could see the grit and dedication he put into his work, something that set him in the upper-echelon of artists for the site.  As the years passed, his style evolved into something utterly unique and unmistakably his own (I love how he outfits just about everyone in chunky sneakers with deep treads), and I was glad when "The Big Two" finally sat up and took notice.  While I'll never be a full-on Marvel zombie, I was more than glad to pick up his work on What If: Age of Ultron and Original Sins for Marvel.  Then I heard Ramon had landed a gig at DC/Vertigo doing a new series called Border Town, so of course I took a peek, and it was love at first preview.  Not only was it top-notch Villalobos, but the dialogue by Eric M. Esquivel is wonderful: funny one moment, thought-provoking the next (I'm waiting for the day I get to use the phrase "world's shittiest centaur"):

I came here for monsters, but it's the human characters that have me enraptured.  It's a great mix, and I'm looking forward to seeing Frank, Julietta, Aimi, and Quinteh (I have a soft spot for gentle giants) every month.  I want to see the problems they're going to face both in and out of school, as well as how they're gonna handle the monsters we know are coming...and I don't just mean the chupacabra that runs rampant through the story, I mean the human ones, like the skinhead who gets a very-deserved beatdown, as rendered to perfection by Ramon:

I heard that the first printing of Border Town #1 has already sold out, and DC has gone back to press, which just blows my mind.  As someone who has to hustle like crazy to sell her own work, I am so proud of Ramon and Eric that they have an apparent runaway success from Day One.  I wish them 100+ issues, and I promise to be there to buy all of them.