Scott Snyder's best work to date.

This review took me so long to write because I wanted to do justice to exactly how good Dark Spaces: Wildfire is. The description of this book will tell you it's about a group of female-convict-firefighters who exploit an opportunity deep in the forest - but that's just the first layer. The story peels back to reveal a much deeper, complex and dynamic commentary, through the amazing illustrations of Hayden Sherman and colourist, Ronda Pattison.

Snyder is pushing the creative envelope of the graphic novel medium, taking the reader beyond a straightforward story and elevating the art form. Throughout the book I'd often stop and read sections to whoever was closest, blown away by the clever writing and gorgeous imagery. When I got to the end, I went right back to the beginning and read the whole thing again.

This is a must read for fans of Snyder's Clear and Nocterra series - you will not be disappointed.

Thank you to NetGalley and IDW for providing me with an advanced copy for review.

I enjoyed this collection of 5 comics about a female fire crew working out of a prison in CA, who use an opportunity to tackle a heist while on patrol. The graphics were beautiful, the plot kept me on the edge of my seat, and it was exciting to read. I did find it a little hard to differentiate the characters and their stories, and I found the watermark to be incredibly distracting to read. Thanks for the chance to preview this!

A team of convict firefighters, making two bucks a day as they risk their lives to protect the property of people who'd never give them a second chance, learn of a fortune in the path of the flames, a fortune which could give them all a future. We know from the start that this isn't the sort of heist story where the leads happily drive off into the sunset with their loot, but even aside from that, it never quite feels like it lives up to its pitch. The women are presented sympathetically, the story keen for us to remember that they're here more because they were dealt bad hands than because they're fundamentally malign – but then we never get any mention of the other half of the equation, where the fires they're fighting are clearly exacerbated by global warming, which is itself a symptom of capitalism cannibalising humanity just as surely as the prison-industrial complex. And that deepened sense of a system long divorced from its ostensible purpose, to the extent that its manifestations are engaged in a futile, destructive fight with each other, could really have elevated this from crime in the sense of a straight-to-streaming thriller to crime in the sense of The Wire.

Now, OK, that's a lot to ask. But even aside from seeing where greater ambition could have taken this, there are flaws. Most obviously, the target of the heist. The owner deserves to get robbed, so that bit's fine. But what are our heroines planning to nab? There's art in the house, and of course getting that away from the flames would be good in itself (yes, I am side-eyeing a certain recent crime story at this point). But they're not after the art, nor cash. No, they're here to steal...crypto.

Yeah.

Now, first of all this entails a story-crucial delay while it takes forty minutes to download. Which, OK, maybe that would be a thing, though it certainly feels a lot like Hollywood hacking bullshit. But the bit which is categorically bollocks: "That amount of currency purchased at that moment in time, regardless of how in flux the market is? It's sure to reap rewards if we pull this off."

Is it, though? Because I'm pretty sure that's not how any of this works. My hope was that this was deliberate, that there was going to be a big reveal that the target was worthless anyway, like those old stories where the haul turned out to be Confederate dollars, except at least these days you could probably make a bit back on Confederate scrip by flogging it online to racists, which is more than you're likely to manage with fucking Dogecoin.

And then there's the art, where the grubby, slightly doughy faces and the action conveyed by inset mini-panels strongly recall Frank Quitely, but mainly to remind the reader that even an artist who knows how good Quitely is, and is trying to capture that, has set themselves quite the challenge. Which, sure, is nobler than coasting, but there were scenes here where I completely misread the scale on first glance, or couldn't follow the split-screen action.

It's not a total write-off – there's one horribly good flashback scene in which a character talks about where playing by the rules has got her – but the overall impression is of rushed, slight fulfillment of a premise that could have delivered something much more.

(Netgalley ARC)

Thank you IDW Publishing for providing me with a version of this comic on NetGalley.

I liked the premise a lot, but the final story was a bit confusing for me. I ended up not caring about the characters enough.
The page composition, cover and colors were pretty good, but I didn’t really like the art style.

I’m sorry this comic just wasn't for me.

Dark Spaces: Wildfire is a short graphic novel that focuses on four women from a detention centre and their commanding officer who decide to complete a heist during the height of a wildfire. The beginning of this graphic novel depicts the five stages of a wildfire as well a short description the different jobs required for the unit.. The job is not an easy one, and for a measly two dollars a day these women puts their lives at risk to prevent/minimize devastation in California.

I loved the artwork in this graphic novel, and appreciated how the illustrations and colouring drew me in to this intense short story. I really enjoyed watching the book progress through the five stages of the wildfire, and the twists and turns the characters faced. I really enjoyed the start of this series, and look forward to seeing where it comes from here. I rated this 4 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and IDW publishing for this eARC.

Absolutely brilliant and beautiful.

Nothing speaks of danger, destruction and new beginnings quite like a wildfire. In this first anthology of the Dark Spaces series, Scott Snyder's characters must take decisions to save their lives, in more ways than one.


Thank you NetGalley and IDW Publishing for the opportunity to read an ARC of this book.