by Manuelita Beck
Daily Lobo
There's something magical about outer space.
Now, keep in mind I was never one of those kids who wanted to go into space one day - you know, the ones dying to go to Space Camp.
But there's something about Orbiter that makes me dream about space. You can tell Warren Ellis is fascinated with space travel. This is a book that looks at space as a wonder, a marvel we should love.
Part of it is the superb artwork from Colleen Doran. She brings every bit of the story to life, from a fantastic shot of a space shuttle in flight to facial expressions.
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Orbiter opens with the crashing of the space shuttle Venture - a shuttle that disappeared in space 10 years earlier, causing the shutdown of the U.S. manned space program. The shuttle crashes into a shantytown where the Kennedy Space Center was - and is covered in skin.
A team is formed to find out where Venture was for 10 years and how it got there and back. It's one part forensic investigation and one part space adventure. But it's really about hope and the knowledge space is out there waiting for us.
With Couscous Express, you can tell Brian Wood is interested in people.
He broke into the comic book scene several years ago as the writer and illustrator of Channel Zero, a look at a futuristic America without civil liberties thanks to a law called the Clean Act. It may be a stylish critique of modern conformity and over-commercialization, but it's also very much about the people who live it.
Couscous Express is the same kind of book. On one level it's just flat-out cool. It's got mafia thugs, a mercenary courier and a girl who rides a scooter. It's got guns and threats and violence. You can't go wrong with any of that.
But it's also a book about people. It may have style, but it's got the substance to back it up.
Olive Yassin hates her job delivering food for her parents' Middle Eastern restaurant. Like a lot of teenage girls, Olive would much rather hang out with her boyfriend. She may hate her job, but she also loves the restaurant, and everything it means - enough to do anything when a Turkish mob threatens it.
Sure, there's a mafia and shootouts, but the story isn't really about all of that. It's about a girl I can imagine knowing, a girl who may be spoiled, but who isn't limited to just that.
