Apparently Lone Star Press comics need contrived Texas connections. Bill Willingham isn’t from Texas, but both his Strange Heroes stories have Texan lead characters. The first is about a wizard in training and the location doesn’t matter whatsoever. The second is about someone stuck on a lost world island; particularly doesn’t matter there.

Neither story has much going for it. In the first, with Kelsey Shannon pencils and Sam de la Rosa, Willingham tries to get a lot of mileage out of a talking wizard cat. He doesn’t get any. Not even the punchlines work. Shannon’s layouts are excruciatingly boring. Terrible expository dialogue too.

The second story has somewhat better art from Bobby Diaz and Bill Williams. Diaz doesn’t have enough detail and his action pacing’s off, but it’s better. It’s all action, so even though the writing’s not great, it too exceeds the first story.

It’s a tepid effort.

CREDITS

Spellbinder, Chapter One; penciller, Kelsey Shannon; inker, Sam de la Rosa; letterer, Brad Thomte. Otherland, Chapter One; penciller, Bobby Diaz; inker and letterer, Bill Williams. Writer, Bill Willingham; editor, Williams; publisher, Lone Star Press.