Thus far, they've published entirely genre titles, running the gamut from fantasy to post-apocalyptic science fiction. This one is still genre, but it touches on new ground: it's a near-future science-fiction story with a touch of horror.

The Story

Fifty years ago, the ghosts started coming back. However, they appeared as largely electrical phenomena, and this gave society ways to deal with them: suppressor towers keep the dead away form population centers and ceramic tombs keep the newly dead at rest. However, the poor and destitute often do not have these necessary protections ...

Hotwire #1 tells the story of Alice Hotwire, a "detective exorcist" who deals with the dead that escape the protective network that lies around the city. As the story opens, the city facing riots, due to whistle blowing that she's alleged to have done, and meanwhile she's discovering that ghosts are growing stronger, seemingly overcoming the age-old defenses against them.

The StoryTelling

Though Hotwire is written by Steve Pugh, it's based on a story by Warren Ellis, and that shows. Warren Ellis is, of course, the author of such crazy modern-day (and near-future) stories as Planetary, Transmetropolitan, and Global Frequency. He's a master of creating ingenuous settings that walk just the right side of unbelievable, and this is another of them.

Steve Pugh's writing is sometimes a bit rough in this issue. Though most of it glides easily by, sometimes things get a bit stilted, particularly when information gets dumped into a story.

However, this is well offset by Pugh's strengths as a storytelling. I think it's his characterization that comes off the best. In the course of just one issue I came to quite like Hotwire, who is rebellious, reckless, and fearless; Pugh paints a great portrait of her. We don't get much on other characters, but I'm pretty sure that Hotwire's reluctant partner, Peter Mobey, is going to develop nicely in the next issue.

I also think that Pugh does a good job with his action sequences. There's a few of them in the book, and they both come across clear and dynamic.

Overall, Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead #1 keeps you reading with its neat background and its rapid-fire storytelling, and at the same time makes you care for the protagonist; there's not much more you can ask from the first issue of a comic.

The Artwork

Radical Comics has made top-rate artwork a hallmark of its comic books from the start. Hotwire is one of their best.

The art is all fully painted by Steve Pugh (who also does the lettering). It's beautiful, crisp, and vibrant. Cityscapes and people alike are realistic and well-detailed, giving a very authentic look to the whole comic.

Placed down in the middle of this you have the ghosts--or blue-lights as they're called. Their sickly blueish-green hue makes it obvious that they don't belong, yet due to Pugh's artwork, they seamlessly blend with the rest of the story. Pugh also does some nicely work with electricity, which is closely related to the blue-lights, and looks equally nice.

Finally, I'll note that some of the aforementioned strength of the action scenes comes from Pugh's careful artistic rendering of them.

Overall, Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead #1 is a very beautiful book.

Conclusion

Of all of Radical's comics, this is the one that most immediately won me over, and the one that I want to continue reading the most. It's a smaller story than something like Caliber (or at least, it is thus far), but Steve Pugh's storytelling seems to support that scope well.