Review – Invader Zim #2 (Oni Press)

Publisher: Oni Press
Writer: Jhonen Vasquez
Artist: Aaron Alexovich, Megan Lawton and Simon “Hutt” Trousellier
Release Date: 19th August, 2015

It still blows my mind that in 2015 we have an Invader Zim comic that not only continues the story but manages to capture the essence of the original series. Come on now, anything that starts with a recap that ends with “I GUNNA GET YEW ZIM! AAAAGH!! I’M HUNGRY!” is pretty much going to be a winner in my book.

This time round we open with Dib pursuing Zim and GIR through space and finally find out what the Gargantis Array is. Before that though, we have the triumphant return of The Tallest and the Irken Armada (of which I have a tattoo!), a tour around the strangest backwater attractions in all of space, and the chance to see what dark matter space vomit looks like! Vasquez and Trueheart don’t skip a beat with this issue, displaying all of the strange and weird humour you would expect from the series, and seem to have found their voices better than the first issue.

The art team deserve a Round of applause for how they have managed to recreate the look of the original show while not having it seem like a cheap gimmick – something all too common with other cartoon-comic crossovers. The colour work is spot-on, the over-exaggerated facial expressions and the huge, disfigured forms are all here. What surprised me though was how pretty they managed to make the carnage and riots across the pages appear. I mean, it’s not going to win any ‘fine art’ awards, but this book is undeniably pretty in its own right, like a Pug with its tongue out or a hungover girlfriend.

With the way the story is progressing, it seems to be taking on a slightly more serious tone than that of the series, and as long as all the characters are reset by the next issue (pretty sure there’s going to be a riot if they don’t) then this could be a very strong series that should draw in a whole new age group of fans.

Rating: 4/5.

PREVIEW ARTWORK (* note, pages are non-sequential)
[Click to Enlarge]