Starcore #1 is a comic written by Kyrun Silva with art by Marcos Martinez. A high school student makes a startling discovery that changes his life. This is a science fiction comic that stars a group of high schoolers and features alien technology. The main man for this tale is Corey Malcolm, he is a high schooler living a pretty normal life with a mom that works a lot. He also has a close group of friends: Greg the slacker, Kim the gamer, Nolan the athlete(baseball), and Diego the geek. This story begins with Corey rushing to school on his bike and accidentally face-planting against the dome in the middle of the park. His crash leaves a crack in it but the security guard doesn’t get on him too hard and off he goes to school. This takes place in the very peaceful town of Springville. The violence here involves gunfire with some blood, but no gore. The pacing here fluctuates from steady to slow as sometimes there can be a bit of talking. The tone is lighthearted with a bit of a dark undertone. There are a couple intense moments due to danger and violence. The dialogue here is conversational with a good amount of back-and-forth with some narration that is focused on character profiles. There are more than a few word-heavy pages and many thick-leaning text bubbles and blocks. This is a debut comic that gives us a good scope of its world with some fun characters and an interesting story.

            The art here is detailed and semi-cartoonish with some well-done shading. The color range here is very wide with plenty to catch your eye on every page. Most of this story takes place outside with a good chunk of it in some hilly woods. The other main locations are the high school and the Alien Counter Taskforce headquarters. The backgrounds usually show the surroundings but on occasion they’ll be a gradient color. The expression level here is high as these characters tend to get animated. The range of emotions is mainly shock, fear, happiness, and a bit of anger. Due to the cartoonish quality of the faces all the looks they make come across clearly. The violence here is gun-heavy with some lasers as well. The action scenes sport a decent amount of panels with good flow and tend to be short.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like science fiction stories starring a group of high schoolers with a bit of violence and drama then this is for you.

“What would this comic’s film rating be?”

PG-13. Violence.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“Maybe I should listen to my mom and wear my helmet.”

 

Physical Link: https://tauruscomics.square.site/product/Starcore/26

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wildflowerscomic/starcore-issue-1/description

***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 24

Violent Pages: 3, for 13% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 0, for 0% of the comic

 

**The levels below aren’t necessarily maintained throughout the whole comic, but they were definitely reached**

 

Violence Level – 3

“Wasn’t no tussling at all.”

“Sometimes you gotta hit somebody.”

“I’m getting charged with how many counts of assault?”

“This was a tournament arc.”

“All my life I had to fight.”

 

Gore Level – 3

“The only thing leaking out your face is tears.”

“Looks like somebody spilled some ketchup.”

“Might need to soak that up with a bath towel.”

“That isn’t supposed to be outside the body.”

“This is a slaughterhouse.”

 

Death Level – 2

“And everybody lived happily ever after.”

“We might have gone to a couple funerals.”

“It just LOOKS like a serial killer was here.”

“Yeah this was a tragedy.”

“Think Gettysburg.”

 

Porn Level – 1

“Everybody kept their clothes on.”

“I guess it was too hot for a bra.”

“Sometimes you got to let everything air out.”

“This is like late night Cinemax in the early 2000’s.”

“Oh. This is porn.”