Resident Alien: Welcome to Earth TPB, by Peter Hogan & Steve Parkhouse, Dark Horse, 2013
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If you’re looking for a clever little graphic novel that mashes up science fiction and mystery, then check out Resident Alien. I read the first chapter when it was serialized in the anthology Dark Horse Presents a couple of years ago, but somehow I missed the mini-series that finished out the story. So I was happy to find this collection.
I’m mainly familiar with writer Peter Hogan from scripting Alan Moore’s Terra Obscura series from a decade or so ago, and I’m not really sure how much of that was Moore and how much was Hogan. Artist Steve Parkhouse has been around for quite a while and I’ve seen his work here and there dating as far back as Warrior; his art style resembles that of Dave Gibbons, but I think it’s a little more organic. The premise is that an alien crash-lands on Earth, scuttles his ship, and uses his mental powers to make everyone on Earth see him as a retired doctor, Harry Vanderspeigle, and he moves to a rural town to wait for someone to come rescue him. But when the town’s doctor is killed, he’s recruited by the sheriff to both play coroner and fill in for a while. Harry both gets intrigued by the mystery, and by the opportunity to become part of a community. Of course, he’s risking both his life and his cover, especially if he happens to run into a one-in-a-million person who his mental powers won’t work on. It’s a simple story, but thoroughly enjoyable. Hogan doesn’t get bogged down in the details of how Harry’s powers work, and keeps his powers well-defined (he doesn’t seem able to pretend to be a shapeshifter, for instance, and though he is unusually perceptive in reading human behavior, he’s not actually telepathic). And the mystery is pretty good, too. If this is the only volume of Harry’s story we get, then it’s a good one. But I hope there’ll be more. |