Daybreak #1 is a comic written by Keith Champagne with art by Stefan Tosheff. A woman with sun-based powers battles a man with power of a black hole. This is a supernatural and science fiction comic with a bit of mystery thrown in. The leading lady for this tale is the superheroine Daybreak, real name Laura. It seems that she has the power to turn herself into a being of light with all the abilities that would entail. She also has super strength, flight, and durability. Ovince Saint-Mater aka Doc Matter is Daybreak’s diametrically opposed foe whose powers we don’t know the full scope of. What we do know is that he has a black hole contained within himself and he isn’t afraid to use it. The story begins with Daybreak restrained in what one would presume is Doc Matter’s lab where she is being scanned. Daybreak is attempting to talk him out of this but Doc Matter launches into his monologue while getting angrier. There is an obvious theme of light vs. dark but that isn’t this comic’s focal point. The action is kinda violent but not really, there are some hard impacts but no blood or gore. The pacing is steady and the tone is somewhat serious. It is very intense at the beginning with scattered moments later on. The dialogue is modern and conversational with some big space-related words used. There are no word-heavy pages here. This is a debut comic that thrusts you right in the middle of the action but after a few pages you’ll have a good grasp of the characters and the world they inhabit.

            The art here sorta has the body of a modern comic but the clothes of something from the Golden Age. The pages purposely have some blur, uneven ink, and look a bit worn in certain areas to give it that old-school feel. The coloring matches this theme as well with the range of colors being mainly yellow with red and blue coming in tied for second. Some pages look like you’d need 3D glasses to read to them properly. For scenery we have the sky with heavy clouds, the sun, and space with distant stars. The starting location is Doc Matter’s lab and after that the main place you’ll find Daybreak is in the sky. The backgrounds show the surroundings of the scene more often than not, but when they don’t it is a gradient color, and there are most likely action lines on it. The expression level here is above-average as these characters really lean into showing how they feel. The main emotions are anger and confusion with a bit of fear. The faces have strong features with the eyes and mouths doing some particular heavy-lifting. This leads to the different expressions being easy to decipher. When Daybreak goes “full light” she gets an ethereal brightness with a bit blur that will draw your attention. The violence here is mostly hands off but there are some high-impact moments. There isn’t any blood or gore. The action scenes come in short bursts but flow well with no confusion.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like supernatural science fiction stories that star a brown woman with sun-based powers with drama and a bit of mystery then this is for you.

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

PG-13. Violence.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“Nothing can escape a black hole, Daybreak!”

 

Purchase Link: https://newpainpro.bigcartel.com/product/daybreak-1

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/newpain/daybreak-1/description

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

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 23

Violent Pages: 6, for 26% 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 – 2

“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 – 1

“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 – 2

“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.”