Back in the latter half of 1999, TheFourthRail.com site co-founder Randy Lander and I were working for a company called Psylum, creating content for its comic-book website, Psycomic. I remember one of the first joint reviews Randy and I did for that website was of Mike Hawthorne's then-self-published Hysteria. As I recall, I didn't fully "get" Hysteria, but I appreciated the energy and imagination that went into it, not to mention Hawthorne's pencilling style. Well, more than six years have passed since then, and Hawthorne has moved the property to not one but two publishers, and I definitely appreciate his storytelling even more now (and I'm better able to iterate what it is I like about it). Hysteria really isn't about plot. It's about action and mood. The action is unrelenting and entertaining, and the mood is edgy but light.
Four street gangs rule over Post Asteria, and the city has been divided pretty much evenly among them. There's only one rule maintaining the peace among the four factions, and that's no gang ventures into another's turf, else an all-out gang war will erupt. The most unusual of the four gangs is the One Man Gang, the sole defender of his section of the city. His ideals come into conflict with the one rule of the gangs, as he glimpses a child in danger just barely on the other side of his boundary with the Eggs Gang's territory. And at another time, a conference of all four gangs is called, and a dedicated cop watches from the shadows, determined to figure out what's going on.
Hawthorne brings a simple style to bear here, but it's a thoroughly effective one. His character designs are basic but striking. One Man Gang elicits memories of kung-fu/martial-arts movies of the 1970s, and the brutish thugs of the Eggs Gang boast a clown-like appeal as villains. The creator's vision of the young girl OMG seeks to protect throughout the main story reminds me a great deal of Juni from J. Torres and Mike Norton's Jason and the Argobots, not just in terms of design but personality as well. The most important visual aspect of the book is the choreography of the action, and it flows smoothly. The artist is quite creative in his depiction of the extended fight/flight scene, and it made for an entertaining first issue.
The one aspect of the issue that didn't quite work for me was the cartoony depiction of the transmission of text messages. Communications signals are portrayed as impish little beings who interact and zip around the world with precocious determination. It adds nothing to the story and in fact distracts from it. I realize we're not meant to take this story and the events seriously at all, but this non-sequitur in the storytelling is a puzzling choice.
I'm struck by just how accessible this new title is despite being the latest in a series of Hysteria comics from Hawthorne. It's not that Hawthorne offers thorough background information, it's that it's not needed at all. Hawthorne establishes the bare basics and tells a story that's not reliant on past events. This simple, straightforward book is all about excitement. The main story offers non-stop action, and the backup feature is about a tense standoff and burgeoning betrayal. 7/10
