Judas Breed #1 - PenInkColor Studios

JUDAS BREED No. 1, March 2015

For those sci-fi horror fans who like their comics to play out more like Ridley Scott’s original “Alien” film than the franchise’s later all-action sequels, Kenneth Brown’s narrative for Issue One of “Judas Breed” must have seemed like a manna read from heaven when it first hit “Kickstarter” in September 2014. Indeed, the increasingly tense atmosphere generated by Connie Beaumont’s exploration of an unknown planet is so well-penned that it comes as no surprise that the publishing project was successfully funded with “two weeks to go.”

Foremost of this book’s enthralling ‘hooks’ is the freelance screenwriter’s ability to seemingly place the NASA scientists in deadly danger, such as when the expedition’s leader is sucked down into a sink hole, only to then show that the central protagonists were never going to actually come to much harm. This technique repeatedly puts the reader on edge, especially once the astronauts start handling a supposedly long-dead fossil found on the neck of a giant extra-terrestrial skeleton, as the audience knows that at any moment the potential threat is suddenly going to become all too real.

Likewise, when the alien menace does finally reveal itself, Brown’s ability to significantly up this comic’s pace is excellent, as all hell breaks loose in the cargo room within the space of just a few panels. This truly shocking sequence is particularly well-delivered due to the author once again momentarily bringing a brief pause to the bloody proceedings by intimating that the inert fossil could only merely stab its hapless victim if they were unwise enough to physically touch it, before ratcheting up the terror another notch or two when it becomes a fully-mobile, dart-firing insectoid; “Oh my god! Connie! I can’t feel my legs! Help me! Aaahhh! Connie, get it off! Get it off!”

Helping this twenty-eight periodical make such a terrifying impact are Ryan Best’s layouts, which go a long way to showing both the friendly relationship enjoyed by this comic’s central characters and the ancient decay of their surroundings when they excitedly discover “the find of the Century.” The artist’s pencilling is particularly prodigious when it comes to Linda’s grim fate, as its easy to imagine from his drawings just how frantic the female scientist is to escape the scuttling of the living fossil as it clambers up her back and heads for the nape of her exposed neck.

Written by: Kenneth A. Brown, Illustrated by: Ryan Best, and Lettered by: HDE