Uber, Lyft and other ride-sharing apps are a bit of a novelty to me. See, our town’s former Mayor owns a taxi cab company. So it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why no ride-sharing service was ever permitted to operate in The Patch. In my various travels, I’ve used the service and aside from one weird trip where the car was parked across the street for 10 minutes, empty when the app said they were “here for pickup” it’s been grand. The popularity of ride-sharing is ever increasing so are we surprised a comic featuring this new occupation has popped up?
That whacky yet lovable Chip Zdarsky (Sex Criminals, Daredevil, Spider-Man), Eisner, Harvey and Shuster award-winning comic book creator seems like the perfect writer for such a project. Chip’s tale of ride-share driver Janice Chen is precisely what you would expect from Chip, that is, the unexpected. The book starts as a regular “night-in-the-life” of a typical driver, right down to the drunken customers. We see Janice navigate her evening with rides and a quick dinner break at her disapproving parent’s home. All standard stuff as the book starts to shape up to be a real-life drama centred around Janice. Until Janice picks up a handsome, well-dressed rider and that’s when the book takes a twist. It looks like Janice has been tapped to assist this mysterious client in the transportation of recently dead souls to the River Styx. We go from eating out of a Rubbermaid container while parked on the side of the street contemplating poor life choices to being chased by demonic Mad Max-inspired cars of carnage in just a few pages.
Assisting Chip is artist Jason Loo (Pitiful Human-Lizard). I’ve followed Jason’s career almost from the start and a nicer creator you will not meet at a convention. His work on The Pitful Human-Lizard as both writer and artist touched many folks with its whitty content and homegrown references. Jason’s “cartoonist” art style is a perfect complement to the tale Chip has created. Paris Alleyne (Haven, GI Joe, Ghostbusters) provides fantastic colours which elevate the realism of Jason’s style. Aditya Bidikar’s lettering work is crisp and clean and exactly what you want in a letterer as the word balloons flow nicely on the page.
The comic is available digitally as part of Comixology’s Originals exclusive digital imprint available HERE. After reading the first issue, I immediately subscribed to the entire series, of which the first three issues have already been released. Great book, a fun read, you won’t be disappointed.
Issue: Afterlift #1 | Publisher: Comixology Originals / Jams + Jellies
Writer: Chip Zdarsky | Artists: Jason Loo & Paris Alleyne
Letters: Aditya Bidikar | Editor: Allison O’Toole
Price: $2.99 – 24 pages
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