Review by Ian Keogh

There’s a neat opening to Smoke and Mirrors as it’s explained that mankind manufactures devices, but magic is the naturally occurring energy powering them, so introducing a different world. Ethan Carroll is a teenage student with good grades, but a propensity for getting into trouble, largely through curiosity. It’s what draws him to Terry Ward doing tricks in the town square. Here they’d be the standard street magic with cards and other props, but on Ethan’s world there’s no need for sleight of hand so they’re even more impressive, and because he can’t figure out how they’re done he wants to know more.

Jon Armstrong is a magician good enough to work close up shows, and he collaborates with Mike Costa in what’s something new for comics. There have been plenty of graphic novels about magic and magicians in comics, so just check the recommendations, but what Smoke and Mirrors does is actually incorporate magic tricks into the pages. Better still, it’s not just in the paper versions, but they work digitally also. That’s all we’ll say about that aspect, as they’re best discovered while reading.

It would be mere artifice if not accompanied by a worthwhile story, and that’s more down to Costa and artist Ryan Browne. There’s no real attempt to conceal the street magician somehow having transferred from our Earth to the alternate reality, and the middle chapter engagingly supplies the circumstances behind that. Also, for all the switching of science for magic, much else is familiar, including people’s attitudes, which endows the few spells used with extra weight. It means Smoke and Mirrors stands up on the sympathetic cast and the situations they find themselves in.

Browne delivers a real world recognisable in most respects apart from the small, subtle anomalies, which is more effective than people flying around on broomsticks and turning into toads. When something greater is needed he still doesn’t resort to the obvious, and it counts for a lot, and while there can be a stiffness about people Browne can also deliver a gorgeously decorative spread.

A villain’s defeat is a little too obviously sold, but otherwise blending magic, reality, drama and horror works to make Smoke and Mirrors spellbinding.