Soma City #1 is a comic written by Chris Moses with art by Christian Wolf and colors by Ilaria Fella. There is a strange sickness going around Soma City and Denton Dials is tasked with finding the source. This is a noir science fiction comic with only non-human races in a gritty world. The leading man for this story is Denton Dials, a tracer who works for the police department in the hopes that he’ll one day be a full-fledged cop. The detective he works with is Fione Ko, she is considered the best one there. The story begins with Dials waxing poetic about the city while chasing someone down. This gives us a glimpse of how things are in the rougher parts of the city. This takes place in a modern world like except there are no humans around. The action here is physical and there is some blood. The pacing is steady with a serious tone and plenty of intense moments. The dialogue is in US English with frequent conversation and a look at Dials’ thoughts. No wordy pages here. This is a debut comic that takes us to the seedier parts of a city and shows us how it affects different people while giving us a mystery to follow.

            The art here seems to be drawn in that smoother modern style but with a light layer of grit thrown on it. The color range is decent with most of them being toned down. The scenery consists of tall buildings and dirty alleys with some rain and/or snowfall. The atmosphere here is very gritty and rough and this can be gleaned from the environment. The location changes a bunch from various alleys to a police station and even a brothel. The backgrounds usually reflect these areas unless it’s an action scene. The expression level here is high as these characters give off many relevant looks. The emotional range here is pretty vast and touches just about everything. The faces are human-like except for the lack of noses and they showcase their feelings well. Some of these creatures have tendrils on their heads, others have hair. The violence here is all physical with the action scenes having a good flow.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you science fiction stories starring a non-human cast that deal with disease tracing and mystery with a decent amount of violence then this is for you.

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

PG-13. Violence, subject matter.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“They obviously lyin’, you know that.”

 

Digital Link: https://www.redseacomics.com/shop/p/soma-city

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1967380671/soma-city-1/description

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

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 24

Violent Pages: 6, for 25% 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.”