RETRO REVIEW: Spy Island Trade Paperback

Dark Horse; $19.99

Nora Freud is a super spy currently residing on an island in the Bermuda Triangle. This island attracts all sorts of interesting things. There’s the usual crop of tourists, with plenty of terrorists, white collar thieves, and criminal masterminds. There are many other spies, also a kraken, mermaids, radioactive sea sludge, alien time bandits, and undead pirates. The usual tourist trap stuff.

Spy Island reads like co-creators Chelsea Cain and Lia Miternique threw genres and storytelling styles they like into a blender. It’s espionage, it’s dark comedy, and it’s the bizarre rumors and legends that come from the Bermuda Triangle.

Cain is a fantastic novelist and has brought her wicked sense of humor and foray into twisted territory through comics like Mockingbird and Maneaters. Her sensibility gives this series an entertaining hook, a sharp lead, and very good exposition.

On the art side, Miternique did the cover, design, and supplemental art with Elise McCall handling the rest of the art. Clean lines bring the characters to life with clarity and depth, and it is so detailed that more and more hidden gems can be found on further viewing. Being that it’s set on a tropical island, the book is lushly colored, but the weirdness factor also comes in with a few trippy designs.

–Amanda Sheriff