I don't know anything about 'The Walking Dead', and Robert Kirkman certainly wasn't on top of my list of comic book writers I was eager to check out. But the first couple of volumes of the trade paperbacks of the 'Outcast'-series somehow fell into my lab, so I thought why not give it a try.

I was immediately drawn to the book's expressionistic color scheme, and how the colors starkly contrast in certain key scenes. What surprised me, though, was how much I felt sucked into the plot pretty much from the start. I mean, it's not overly original, but it's just done in a very cool way.

After some boy starts to act completely out of character, completely unrecognizable and prone to extreme violence, the local minister is contacted (because, in the past, he had warned the mother that something like that might happen). To the minister's mind, what is going on is a war between Heaven and Hell, and the forces of evil take possession of innocent people, using them for an (as off yet) unknown purpose. So, he resorts to exorcism as a means to expel the demons from their human hosts.
At the same time, there is this other guy, certainly deeply troubled (as the reader will figure out in an instant) and living in this complete mess of a house. At the begin of the story, he is visited by his sister, who seems to be the only person who still cares about him. The reader soon gets to know that there were other demonic possessions of the people close to him, but he seems to have certain powers by which he can defy the demons. Eventually, he teams up with the minister to help people in need.

I thought the action scenes here were very exciting, the dialogues gave me the vibe of some awesome movie from the 80s (name your favorite), and it certainly made me eager to find out more of what is going on. Actually, it's the latter aspect that I hope will be explored more in later volumes. It would be great if the mystery takes center stage in what is to come. Looking forward to more!

Rating: 3.5/5