Review by Frank Plowright
Crainaics may have slipped beneath your radar, but it’s a very 21st century success story of the intellectual property starting in one medium, in this case trading cards, and expanding into all sorts of other homes. There are lot of different Crainiacs, all designed by artist Joe Simko as skull-headed children for the cards, while Sholly Fisch has been drafted in for the writing. The basic plot is that two forms of Crainiacs have to learn to live alongside each other, Retrovia being a sort of Flintstones version of society, while Futerra is technologically advanced, perhaps The Jetsons.
The how and why of the merged planet is explained early, but separate zones are maintained, with contact between the two forbidden. However, that’s no fun, so Fisch has a pair of Retrovian teenagers meet a couple of Futerran teens, each disabusing the other of rumours and superstitions while having fun exploring a different environment. The prevailing moral is of people better for coming together rather than remaining apart. It’s not too long before the kids are fast friends despite differing backgrounds and constructing their own den.
Were it not for the bright colour and digital pages you might mistake Crainiacs for an underground comic. There’s the same grungy sensibility to the design, and an anarchic look overall with the energy paramount on Simko’s pages. It creates an exciting world young children will want to be involved in, so job done.
As a means of bonding between societies Fisch is inventive in conceiving funny games each enjoy, and they occupy the pages until a plot about parents missing their children comes to a head. Kids have already been collecting the cards, so there’s no reason they’ll not follow Crainiacs into comics.
