Review by Frank Plowright

The title is easily explained by The New World taking place after the second American Civil War. At the start it’s superheroes as a reality TV show where viewers vote on whether the target should be executed.

Aleš Kot’s previous projects display little faith in humanity’s compassion and better instincts, yet The New World supplies optimism provided by two people on different sides of the fence in what’s a thoroughly engaging action romance. Stella Maris is the game show’s second best hunter, yet she won’t kill, an aberration indulged while she’s so popular and is the TV mogul’s grand-daughter. Kirby Miyazaki is a confident and technically adept rebel, yet one night they come together in a dance club and everything changes.

Tradd Moore has always been an offbeat artist, but he owns this project. The setting and formula plays to his experimental strengths and Kirby’s name is a big clue as to the prevailing aesthetics. Moore channels the imaginative power of Jack Kirby’s art while Hayao Miyazaki’s influence is more apparent in the tour of wonder and the prevailing hope of the two outcasts being able to beat the system. Moore’s art hits the spot on all counts, but it’s elevated further by the vibrant colours added by Heather Moore. Excess is all for some pages, gloriously trippy 1960s throwbacks with the vivid psychedelic miasma almost assaulting the eyes, yet with unexpected romance the core of The New World, there’s also an awareness of when to tone things down.

Once the characters have been introduced and you’ve come to like them, what you really want is a little uncertainty, but not too much, some fun and a happy ending for those who deserve it. If you’re really lucky a writer will come up with something you’re not expecting that’s even better. Is that Kot? Why don’t you find out?