Review by Ian Keogh

As Debris opens Maya is on the verge of being promoted to Protector of her community, which is the last remnants of humanity in a future when the planet is overrun by feral mechanical dinosaurs.

It’s a great concept, and we’ll give Kurtis J. Wiebe the benefit of doubt for being too young to remember it being the idea behind Metalzoic 25 years earlier. Even if that is the inspiration, he takes a different view by focusing on the human struggle for survival. When disaster strikes the only hope for the community’s survival is for Maya to head out of the relatively safe encampment into the wider world in search of what many believe is just a myth.

Don’t get too hung up on explanations. The world is delivered as it is, and the guiding spirit of Debris is the journey to something else, not an explanation of how it came to be. After the opening chapter almost everything Maya encounters is new and unfamiliar, and the purpose is to experience the wonder and danger along with her.

This is early art from Riley Rossmo, so he’s not evolved into the accomplished stylist he’d become. There are some awkward glitches where he’s straining against conformity, but they’re secondary to a well developed vision of a random future society. The thought involved in the design is brought home on noticing a woman in combat training whose head and shoulders are protected by a garment created from old floppy disks. Before then we’ve seen Rossmo’s intricately constructed dinosaurs, provided in various sizes, and always a delight, if not seen that way by Maya. An indication as to Maya’s confident personality is how she skips athletically among them, and among the debris remaining from the world gone by.

Debris eventually falls down because there’s nowhere else to go and some resolution is called for. It’s rather vague and fudged, with Rossmo not delivering the necessary clarity. However, there’s more than enough to enjoy along the way.