Deities! Immortality! Art School! All of these things and more, in this new ongoing by the creative team of Ram V. and Filipe Andrade. Join me this week as I delve into my pull list for this exciting new series from BOOM! Studios!

Death Becomes Her

Humans have always been fascinated with death, for obvious reasons. We’ve made up stories about what happens after we die, and why “good” people die, and yes, many stories about Death inhabiting a human body and walking among us. From The Seventh Seal to Meet Joe Black, we love the idea of Death walking around as a person, especially if it means that we get a brief glimpse of immortality. Ram V. has taken this trope and set it in modern Mumbai, with the Hindu pantheon. I can’t say whether this is an old trope in Indian media, but it’s sure a new enough twist to me to be really fascinating!

The next section contains SPOILERS, although nothing that’s not in the description of the book. We enter the world of the Hindu gods, specifically Kali, goddess of time, doomsday, and of course death. What’s fun is that they set up the pantheon as a corporation, with Brahma as the CEO and Kali as a high-powered executive. Unfortunately, she’s been made redundant, as a prophecy has been fulfilled on Earth that will bring about the end of death as mortals know it. Obviously, Kali isn’t happy with this, but she doesn’t have much choice. As part of her retirement package, she is put into the body of a dead mortal, and allowed/forced to live out her days as a human being. She’s still got a few tricks up her sleeve though, and intends to return to her former position one way or another.

A Cut Above

I really really like Ram V.’s writing. I know I’ve read something else by him, but it might have been before I redid the blog, because I can’t find what that was. But I know I’ve read them before, because they have a very unique style. They’re easily the most poetic writer I can think of in the modern era, and I’m always enchanted by their words. Ram writes with a really satisfying mix of flowery descriptions and down-to-earth dialogue, that always sounds realistic and unforced. It’s hard to write effectively for comics, and Ram goes above and beyond, being not just a great comic writer, but a great writer in general.

I haven’t even mentioned the art, which you can see from the above examples is super cool. Or maybe you hate it! Everyone’s entitled to be wrong. What I love the most about Andrade is the color palette, good goddess I love these purple and pink pastels. Clear faces, great backgrounds, and really engaging dynamic art. I also try to shout out when an artist draws POC as they look, not just drawing white people and using a different skin tone. I think it’s important to portray people of different races accurately, and the way to do that of course is to get artists who aren’t white. So kudos to BOOM! for keeping it progressive and fresh, I think that comics as an industry can be saved if they expand to be more inclusive.

I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll leave you with two thumbs up! If you’ve got room in your pull list for a magical realism story set in modern-day Mumbai, then I highly recommend adding this one!