One of my favourite episodes of the 1970’s Battlestar Galactica TV show was named The Lost Warrior in which Apollo and a Cylon Centurian are stranded on an Earth-like planet mimicking the Wild West. Ol’ Red Eye shooting it out, High Noon-style, with the locals. Recently my pal, Donovan Yaciuk, told me about a comic he was involved with and when I saw the theme was similar to that old Battlestar episode I jumped at the chance to have a read.
Kimot Ren is a robot belonging to Tolek Ren of the Martian Planetary Council. Aboard a Martian spaceship, Tolek Ren attempts to wrestle control from Commander Sar Miok. It would appear Commander Miok intends to bomb a piece of the Earth in the hopes that this would force the Martin Planetary Council to change its policy of non-interference with the more primitive Earth’s population. This would-be mutiny goes horribly wrong and the vessel crashes to Earth. To maintain this non-interference policy the ship self-destructs but not before Kimot Ren manages to escape carrying his mortally wounded owner. Trapped on Earth, Kimot Ren tries to stay hidden but is ultimately found and eventually is left in the possession of a group of travelling entertainers.
While the basic robot-cowboy premise of the comic is similar to that old Battlestar Galactica episode, writer Julian Darius imparts his own spin on this plot trope giving us a neat cast of characters. Andre Sirgar’s art is really top notch and would fit comfortably with the works of more mainstream comics. Although I am slightly biased Donovan Yaciuck’s colouring is fantastic demonstrating that comic book colouring is an art onto itself and not just grabbing a box of crayons and staying in-between the lines. Steven Legge’s lettering is clean and unobtrusive doing exactly what good lettering is supposed to do. All of this gives the book a solid, polished and professional look such that you would be surprised this is a self-published, independent comic book.
So far two issues of Kimot Ren have been published and are available on Comixology and Amazon Kindle. I fully intend to check out the rest of the series shortly. And while I didn’t know Kimot Ren was a spin-off series until I read Julian’s text page at the end of the comic I’m now very intrigued in reading the main comic, Martian Comics. For more information, you can have a look at the Kinmot Ren Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/KimotRen/.
Issue: Kimot Ren #1 | Publisher: Martian Lit
Writer: Julian Darius | Artists: Andre Siregar, Karl Jauslin, Adolf Vollmy, & Donovan Yaciuk
Letters: Steven Legge | Editor: Julian Darius
Price: $2.99 – 32 pages
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