Disaster Inc. #1
Written by Joe Harris
Art by Sebastian Piriz
Lettering by Carlos M. Mangual
Published by AfterShock Comics
Review by Joey Edsall
‘Rama Rating: 7 out of 10
If you watched the short-lived David Farrier-helmed Netflix documentary series Dark Tourist, you may have been surprised that a series with such an affected title had a lot of interesting insights and discussions throughout it. If you’ve seen the show, it is next to impossible to not think of it when reading Disaster Inc. #1. While the debut issue has a few growing pains to work through, it has the bones of something tonally unique with cool ideas waiting to bubble up to the surface. Like the aforementioned show, while it may be on its surface about borderline exploitative tourism into strange and dangerous locations, it also asks questions about the ethical nature of sneaking into a highly radioactive space for the sake of an adrenaline rush, and what it says about the outsiders who venture into other countries with the entitlement to do so.
Disaster Inc. plays one of its most interesting cards in its first few pages. Writer Joe Harris and artist Sebastian Piriz show readers a pair of entomologists who are researching mutations among the butterfly population among the radiation-laced land around ?kuma, Fukushima following the devastating nuclear accident there in 2011. The German entomologists are unable to find anything out of the ordinary while taking photographs of the butterflies, but their outing quickly turns deadly when what looks like the silhouette of a ghostly samurai hacks them both down.
Harris introduces this element as a strictly visual component of the story — it doesn’t speak, nobody talks to it or tries to explain what it is. This strengthens the connection it makes a few pages later when our protagonist, Abby, learns that the older volunteers who wanted to sacrifice themselves for the younger generation were known as Nuclear Samurai. Importantly, Harris makes no further mention of what happened in the opening, and Piriz does not show readers a ghostly samurai for them to tie to the opening. It’s a subtlety that elevates the comic.
Abby works for the titular company, assisting the company’s president Paolo as the two take people on clandestine tours of off-limits and dangerous locations. It is in the introduction of these tourists that Disaster Inc. is at its best. There is a lot of juggling of characters and motivations, and while Abby’s narrations certainly help in this endeavor, there is accompanying dialogue and panel composition that provides everything needed about everyone involved. That’s not to say Abby’s narration is overkill — if anything it provides a needed grounding point for what is probably the least fleshed out character of the group.
It’s here that Harris’s story is also at its most interesting. One of the tourists is an incompetent but wealthy scion to a shipping company. He is simultaneously an heir but also running the company into the ground. (Don’t think about it too much — he’s clearly dead in the next few issues.) Another is an environmental activist. The final two are followers in the sense that their actions are defined by the two previously mentioned tourists. The comic doesn’t linger on it much, but it places the idea that, despite the intentions of everyone involved, they’re still trespassing on tragedy. It’s a genuinely cool set-up, and it isn’t entirely dissimilar from a horror film. It’s a rotating group of very different, seemingly archetypal people of varying morality, all entering a situation they really shouldn’t be entering.
Artist Sebastian Piriz is a major part of why the tone of this book feels so unique. Everything written above could be shown in indie book du jour harsh shadows and dark color palettes. Instead, Piriz embraces a vibrant, varied array of colors with a subdued matted finish that makes everything feel softer and breezier. Like the tourists themselves, readers feel themselves lulled into the serenity of the environment; an environment that is not the truth that they will find as the neons of the next issue teaser show. And this ties in thematically when local guide Tosh primes the group to see the world as it really is.
While the introduction of the characters is a highlight of the book, it is not always the most graceful. Abby’s narration often disrupts the flow of the scenes, and something that is supposed to be happening at a snappy pace comes much more slowly. Removing this narration would improve the flow, but as mentioned, it takes away from readers knowing who Abby is, as she doesn’t do much to signify her character outside of the opening.
The opening shows Abby as a character that is somewhat of a sponge to the situations Disaster Inc. is taking her to. She’s doing background research; she’s watching in-flight documentaries. But then later in the book, Harris wants us to know that she’s only doing this because she has debts to pay. It’s a shortcoming, because that tells readers that Harris was confronted with a choice to have his main character morally compromised more than he’d like or to spell out that he believes this kind of tourism is wrong. It’s a misstep because the other dialogue, and the actual use of the word “exploitation” should be all the clue readers need to how the book wants them to feel about this — giving Abby the “I’ve got debts” angle just removes a little tidbit of character that she organically had. The book also ends abruptly, with the group arriving in Fukushima. There isn’t much left to the reader to speculate on what even the next minute brings for the group. Disaster Inc. is often good, but this feels like a prologue.
There’s not much you can do to mitigate the fact that Disaster Inc. #1 is a scaffolding issue. Character introductions and supernatural-tinged cold open notwithstanding, it’s clear that this book is a vehicle to get to the next installment, and so it doesn’t really explore the greater story it’s telling more than small nods. While this can be frustrating at times, it’s far from a problem unique to this book. Disaster Inc. #1 has all of the tools to be a special comic — Joe Harris delivers an interesting premise, some solid intrigue, and a mostly colorful cast of characters, all of which is drawn and colored beautifully by Sebastian Piriz. There’s a good chance parts of this book will hook you, but a lot of the lasting interest is going to depend on the next issue.