NYC2123 Dayender

A combination of crisp, stylish black and white (and occasionally a bit of red) artwork and crisp, intelligent writing with a not-so-distant future cyberpunk storyline makes NYC2123 Dayender a comic I would gladly have paid money for. To make a great thing even better, it was free, downloadable directly from the comic's website. If you like comics even a tiny bit, and you're looking for something new to do with your PSP, have a look at this comic.

It's rare to find a book with a really good balance of story and art. To find it in a comic that can be had for free online is really, really cool.

Writing the Future

The setting is the near future (New York City in the year 2123, oddly enough). The writing is appropriately slick, with just enough invented jargon to give a futuristic feel without going overboard. Too little of this and the future atmosphere is weakened, too little and it becomes unbelievable. NYC2123 achieves the right balance.

At first I thought there was too much reliance on narration, with not enough dialogue -- too much telling and not enough showing -- but the story picked up so quickly that I very soon stopped noticing. Even with a fair bit of narration, writer Chad Allen avoids the dreaded infodump (explaining too much at once), allowing the background information to unfold along with the story.

Drawing Action

Paco Allen's artwork is, as I said, stylish. The mostly stark black and white suits the story perfectly, and there are some sequences where flipping through the pages creates a flip-book effect and the pictures seem to move. Very cool. My only criticism is that the pages sometimes change orientation from horizontal to vertical. I prefer that to cramming too-small art on the page, though.

I really can't say enough about how great this comic is. Go read it now. Highly, highly recommended.

(This review was based on issues 1-5 of NYC2123 Dayender.)