Geek-Girl #6 - Markosia Enterprises

GEEK-GIRL No. 6, September 2020

Featuring a sizeable cast of characters, including a humorous cameo by Guano Guy and Mister Marvellous Man, Sam Johnson’s narrative for Issue Six of “Geek-Girl” probably pleased the majority of this comic’s fans when it ‘hit the shelves’ in September 2020. Sure, the titular lead doesn’t actually have much to do within this particular twenty-page periodical, apart from arrange “a fabulous, fancy-dress night – themed on Seinfeld’s alternative Xmas, Festivus” for her girlfriends. But that doesn’t stop the book’s plot from still posing some intriguing questions as to the motivation behind some of the series’ other personalities.

Indeed, arguably this publication’s best moment is the scene depicting “Johnny Carlyle’s right-hand man Digger Mensch” meeting up with the likes of villain Papa Potato inside a seedy bar area. There’s some seriously good tension generated by Digger’s conflict with his supposed pals, following their objections that he has helped restore the town’s previously destroyed police station with his construction super-powers, and the builder’s palpable fear of Black Mass literally leaps out of the panel when the criminal questions Mensch’s loyalties by warning him that Carlyle is fast becoming a problem for the rest of the group.

Likewise, the air of mystery surrounding a lone Satanist communicating with the dead in an upper apartment’s rune-covered mirror is equally as enthralling, especially when the man’s desperate pleas for help from beyond the grave actually seem to prove successful, and he conjures up the ghost of Kristina; “Haven’t seen… But someone could see him, maybe. Lady of Voodoo… Cabra Cini. Yesss. Find on the Dark Web.” The identity of this fair-haired cultist is intriguingly kept hidden from the reader, as is the reason as to why he’s trying to locate someone who has “taken all our cash and cleaned out his apartment.”

Carlos Granda should also be acknowledged as a key contributor to the competence of this comic, with his prodigious pencilling. Johnson has penned plenty of word-heavy, dialogue driven sequences in “Change Of Plan”, yet the artist still manages to make these conversations pleasing to the eye by imbuing all their participants with both animated life and, in the case of Summer James, plenty of vibrant personality too.

The regular cover art of "GEEK-GIRL" No. 6 by Jason Hehir & Chunlin Zao