Psion #2 is a comic written by Mark Bandy with art by Uchenna Ugbor. John seeks medical attention when he starts seeing things after a routine procedure. This is a science fiction drama comic that primarily takes place on an HBCU campus with realistic relationships, dangerous secrets, and plenty mysteriousness. The main man here is John Lewis and he is a criminology major at Gibbs-Green College. He recently underwent a free Lasik procedure to improve his eyesight but he’s been dealing with some strange side effects. One of John’s closest friends is Danita, she is a very intelligent bio major from the UK who is blunt, direct, and has a somewhat quick temper. There are other members of this friend group including a player on the football team. This story begins with John stomping down the hallway to Danita’s room and banging on her door. She wakes up irritated and asks him why he’s doing this and he tells her about the procedure and how it’s been giving him migraines. She is hesitant to believe him until he tells her that they put him to sleep for a minimally invasive procedure. This takes place in Jackson, Mississippi around a college campus. There are some hard hits and a little blood but nothing gory. This story moves at a slightly slower pace than the average as there can be a lot of technical talking. The tone is a mix of a college drama and creeping sci-fi horror with a good deal of dramatic intensity. Dialogue here is very conversational and realistic with a lot of back-and-forth. There aren’t any word-heavy pages though a few can feel like it. This is a riveting sequel issue that increases the college drama and raises the sci-fi stakes while showing us just how resilient and fast-thinking these characters can be.

            The art here is drawn in a smoothly detailed realistic modern style with decent lighting and shading. This has a realistic color palette with colors and outfits you’d see in college. For scenery we have the campus special: tall trees, freshly cut grass, and bushes around the buildings.  The location changes more than a few times from dorms to halls to the football stadium with other places in-between visited as well. Backgrounds are split between showing what’s actually there from ground to walls or just being a gradient color. The expression level here is above-average as these characters have a mix of both overt and subtle looks. Emotions go from fearful and shocked to angry and irritated with some happy moments mixed in. Faces have a decent to high amount of detail with wrinkles and strong eyes leading to most of the expressions being very clear. The violence here is physical with heavy hits and crashes but only a little blood and nothing gruesome or gory. There is only one action scene and it has some length to it with a higher panel count and a smooth flow.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like college dramas that take place in the Deep South and star Black students while featuring science fiction elements and mystery then this is for you.

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

PG-13. Violence, blood.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“It’s been that kind of day, I’m afraid.”

 

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crimsonsleeper/psion-2-a-southern-gothic-thriller-48-pages-full-color/description

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

Probably Contains Spoilers

*
*
*
*
*

Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 47

Violent Pages: 7, for 15% 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 – 2

“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 – 1

“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.”