The Auteur #1

By Rick Spears, James Callahan & Luigi Anderson

Just by looking at the cover of The Auteur‘s debut issue, you can tell you are in for one screwball comic. A washed up and disgraced movie producer named Nathan T. Rex is doing whatever he can to try to save his floundering career. Using all manner of drugs to try to trigger his creativity, it’s after a particular glue sniffing session at a strip club that T. Rex realizes what he must do to elevate his art to the next level.

For only being its first issue, The Auteur is one of the most unconventional series that Oni Press has ever put out. Having not been familiar with any prior written work by Rick Spears, this first issue seemingly comes out of nowhere and immediately makes an impact. T. Rex’s tale of the Hollywood rise and fall can seem familiar but there are plenty of unconventional twists and details that really make it stand out  on its own. Using his drug addled visions to inspire his artistic creativity may seem like a good idea to him, but we will have to see how this story plays. As of right now, from a reader’s point of view, things are about to get a lot worse for T. Rex.

When discussing the first issue of The Auteur, the one thing that needs to be discussed is the astounding art in this book done by James Callahan and Luigi Anderson. Front-to-back this book was amazing to just look at, all of the bright colors and hyper violence makes you feel like you are also having drug fueled hallucination. The double page spread of President Lincoln chopping an axe into T. Rex’s head is like a car crash that is brutal to see but hard to look away from. This art team is killing it on this first issue and the art alone makes you want to read the next issue.

There really aren’t a lot of madcap series out right now that are doing what The Auteur is pulling off. Even though comparing one series to another is considered taboo, while reading this first issue you can’t help but see a lot of similarities to Chew. Both are off-the-wall concepts that balance both drama and humor while delivering an intense art style with a vivid color palette. This was a good start for The Auteur and based on this first issue it seems like this will be a fun series to follow that just might become the cult classic that Hollywood producer T. Rex has been looking for.