by Randy Lander

ATLAS #1 Recommended (8/10) Drawn & Quarterly "Atlas part one" "There are no words in my mouth" Writer/Artist: Dylan Horrocks "Letters to Hicksville: Schoolbus" Writer/Artist: James Kochalka Price: $3.95 US/$5.95 CAN Having read Hicksville only in its collected form, I had some worries that I might find the serial installments of Atlas lacking in some way. As it turns out, there's plenty to enjoy in this issue alone, because even though the story doesn't go too far yet, it's a nice reminder of the joys of Hicksville and an interesting reintroduction of characters found there. It would no doubt be of interest to those who haven't read Hicksville, but it's of most interest to those who wanted to see some of those characters and concepts explored again. In the space of these pages, Horrocks explores a strange dictatorship, a comics journalist who has become interested in an obscure cartoonist and a comic that gives us a sense of what that cartoonist's work looks like. Add in a James Kochalka short playing with the concept of Hicksville, and you've got a strong offering that will probably end up as a nice collection to go alongside Hicksville on your shelf. Horrocks's work sometimes confuses me, as he switches perspective and mixes reality and fiction pretty freely. For instance, putting himself into the story rather than having Comics World reporter Leonard Batts interrogated in the first segment calls into question whether or not Cornucopia or Emil Kopen are real or fictional, and blurs the line a little. That may be the intention, as it seemed to be with Hicksville, as Horrocks plays on the corners of our suspension of disbelief by suggesting "Hey, what if this neat stuff were real?" At any rate, though sometimes a little confusing, it's certainly an intriguing element to his storytelling. The opening sequence is also a nice introduction to Kopen, who seems to be the focus of the book. The notion that he might be a danger to his government, and that his comics represent some form of real power rather than just being cartoons, gives him a more powerful presence. And it makes the introduction of his snippet of comic something to examine, wondering if it's simply a harmless little story or a map of something more. Horrocks does a nice job of conveying Kopen's style as something distinct from his own, with "covers" reproduced or a somber, moving strip about the Holocaust near the end. For me, however, the big attraction of the book was the second section, which is more or less a direct sequel to Hicksville. That story (back in print next week) was about super-hero fan and journalist Leonard Batts coming to a wider point of view about the medium, and this story is about his journey into one of those unexplored corners. His discovery of Hicksville has changed him, calmed him, almost as if his trip was to Tibet or some other place where he could be spiritually changed, and it was fascinating to watch him interact with an old friend. I also enjoyed that this portion of the story was told entirely in single panel pages, which gives the whole thing an open and friendly feel to match the tone of that story. I'm not quite ready to proclaim Atlas as a work of genius that everyone should read, or up to the level of Horrocks's work on Hicksville, but he's off to a good start and I definitely look forward to the next installment. Email Randy Lander comments about this review.