Review – The Mirage from Owen Michael Johnson

May 31, 2024

2–3 minutes

The latest offering from Owen Michael Johnson, THE MIRAGE takes us to 1979 Las Vegas and introduces us to Sid Crystal, a disillusioned lounge pianist who spends his nights supporting shady singer Ellery Banks (aka “The Ice Cream Dream.”) Locked into a suffocating contract he foolishly signed with Banks, Sid has all but resigned himself to watching his career, and his life, gradually trickling away. But when a chance encounter with cocktail waitress Carla Hardcastle gives him an opportunity at the one thing he’s been praying for all these years – a way out – it takes the pair on a dizzying crime caper that will very likely change both of their lives forever. Or perhaps not.

We’ve been huge fans of Johnson’s creative work since mid-2015 (which is kinda crazy if you stop to think about it), when he and artist John Pearson unleashed the genre-defying Beast Wagon on an unsuspecting public, and continued that love affair several years later with Reel Love, his bitter and painful “love letter” to the world of cinema. It’s been a while since he has released anything new (too long, in fact), so when we got the opportunity to take a look at this brand new release, there was no way we were going to pass it up.

At its heart, THE MIRAGE is a Vegas heist movie, but as always, Johnson injects his own little something extra into the proceedings, crafting a bleary and slightly grotesque world and filling it with bleary and slightly grotesque characters. Sid is a thoroughly intriguing leading man, and his plight is an easy one for the reader to get behind as he looks to get out from under the thumb of his boorish, egocentric “boss”. However, what starts as a straightforward enough tale rapidly spirals into something altogether different, with the artistic style and narrative flow becoming more and more eccentric and unpredictable throughout the 40-page duration.

I’m not going to dig too deeply into what actually happens in the story, because where’s the fun in that? Suffice to say that Johnson clearly has an absolute blast setting up the status quo then willfully tearing it down again, resulting in an intentionally unpredictable tone and an almost hallucinogenic feel at times – something the hazy purple and yellow colour scheme only serves to underscore. Visually, Johnson is able to showcase his knack for exaggerated detail and almost cartoonishly expressive characters here, and a tip of the hat is also warranted to letterer Colin Bell, who manages to keep things flowing smoothly while incorporating the dialogue and effects seamlessly into Johnson’s distinctive aesthetic.

In all honestly, given the creator’s track record it was unlikely that we weren’t going to enjoy this, but perhaps the most impressive thing about THE MIRAGE is that it’s like absolutely nothing else Johnson has done in the past, taking established tropes and genres and weaving them together into something strange but undeniably compelling. It’s a heist, it’s a character piece, it’s a twisty-turny look at the murky underbelly of the late ’70s Vegas strip, and it’s absolutely glorious. Highly recommended.

[PREVIEW ARTWORK – CLICK TO ENLARGE]