Free Comic Book Day "Contract"

In case you are not in the know, this Saturday is Free Comic Book day. It is a promotional day where your local comic shop will be handing out free comic books. While there may be rules and guidelines at your shop for what they will be getting or on how many they will be handing out, the fact remains that you are getting comic books for free. And since they are free, I don’t feel bad about posting pages from them here on my review blog. So that is why May is going to be Free Comic Book Month here on Comic_Kathy.

But I just said that the comic books won’t be coming out until this weekend. Well no need to worry. I got issues of free comics from years past. So even though it is Tuesday, you still get a free comic, even if it is from 2009. With this said, First Salvo Productions.

To be honest, there are very few reliable places where you can learn anything about them. The first is on the comic I am going to review own website. There it shows that there are only three issues of the book, and four different covers for issue 01. The page has some web comics I might have to look at in the future, an art gallery, an apparel button which my protection software says has a Trojan, and a news button which takes you to a blog. Really, on this page is nothing about the company, just what they put out.

The other source is Deviant Art, so feel free to take that as you will. The Deviant Art page has, of course, more art.

But that is enough telling you about them I think. If you really want to know what this company is famous for in my eyes, then let’s get right into looking at the Free Comic Book Day issue of “Contract”

 

As always we start with the cover. This is dull. It has one character standing squarely in the center with a bunch of other character’s heads all around her. Under the title are the names of the people who worked on this issue. It was a nice idea, but really feels kinda like they knew their cover was basic and wanted to add in something different before they ran out of time to get this issue out for free comic book day.

On the inside cover we have a page of expiations that they could not fit into the story itself. For me, this is just a bad move. You never want the first thing people read in your book to tell them all about your universe. You need to explain it as the story goes along to keep the reader buying and wanting to know what this place is. Putting this all at the beginning ruins the magic. But that is not the only thing that bugs me about this. To explain who lives on what planet, they use cultures from Earth. Why? Why do all these planets have a different culture from EARTH on them and nothing else? My favorite is Tropica, the North American culture planet. Seeing how North America is a melting pot of the world’s cultures into one, how can anyone say that they are their own when all of their roots come from everywhere else?

The comic begins on Tropica. A red sports car is driving up to an older ranch house. The person in the car is talking about how life is hard for a Mercenary or Merc as the comic calls them. The person says that there is nothing better than coming home. And now we get into the character art for this book.

Huge change from the cover, isn’t she? Her skin has gone pale and she got a haircut. Oh and now her bodysuit does not include a bra since her nipples are in full view. Proportion wise, I do have to admit that I have seen worse. Of course her breasts are still huge for that build. Her expression is what really baffles me. Is she suppose to be scared of something and if so, what?

She walks up to the door where her cats are sleeping outside. She asks them where some guy called pop is, never once changing her expression from the page I shared with you. As soon as she opens the door, see pulls her gun on someone who seems to have broken in.

And it turns out to be the milk drinking O face man. Dialog here makes no sense to me. The idea is that she scared him and now he is, I guess, choking on his milk. Well if that was the case, he is very stiff and is able to keep the milk inside his mouth even when it is open AND his head is facing forward. Anyway, O face here explains that Mr. Garrett (pop) has gone on vacation and he was asked to look after this place.

I guess she jumps off panel and back to get a rag to clean up the milk, but how does one get their body like that? She explains how she is upset than doesn’t care. Well that was an awesome sub plot. As the two of them clean up the milk, we finally get names for our characters. The guy is named Gene Morgan and the girl is Jessie. Gene is sorry for startling her and Jessie says that she is not use to seeing strange men in her house. All while giving Gene the ‘I am so going to sex this guy’ look.

Gene says that he comes over a few times a week so he isn’t a strange man. Yeah, cause coming over to a house and never meeting a person does not make you a stranger to that person you never met. Gene says that Jessie’s dad misses her (in case you did not figure it out, her full name is Jessie Garrett) and now that Jessie is here, he doesn’t have to stay anymore. Jessie instead invites Gene in for a home cooked meal.

If you have not figured it out yet by this page, I’ll just tell you. The people in charge of this comic like boobs. And I mean they really like boobs. I’m sure you could tell with the costume from before, but now that she is in her ‘normal’ outfit you can really tell that her main focus in going to be the chest. Also, 2 out of 3 panels she is in on this page have that vacant stare of ‘I want sex’ again. Gene really enjoyed the meal (No idea if it was the one he ate or the one for his eyes) and asks how Jessie became a Merc in the first place.

Jessie says that since it was only her and her dad on the farm, they were very close. She also says that she was a natural with a gun her whole life. But her life had a quick change when the flood happened. 

Just a reminder, Jessie has boobs. But also, is that Gene in the background right? Right under her breasts, that guy looks really like Gene. How is he in the flash back if this is the first time the two have ever met? Yeah I guess that is not Gene, but he really looks like it to me. Anyway, because of the flood, they lost the farm due to debt.

Wait, what?

Okay, I think I got it. The farm was in debt and then a flood happened and they did not have flood insurance so they went farther into debt. Yeah, it still sounds a bit stretched but whatever. It’s a scarring back story for Jessie. Yippee!

Pop and Jessie tried to do what they can but soon they had to talk to Mom. Mom is a big shot on Selenus. Refer to the inside cover at this time. Pop and Mom were married only long enough for Mom to give birth to Jessie. Very big plot convenience if I do say so myself. They are still legally married (why?) after all this time and they didn’t hate each other at all. Seriously, what the heck? Your mom loves you and your pop but doesn’t want to be with you if she can avoid it? That’s just dumb. But whenever mom visits, she and pop sex it up and that is how Jessie here has her siblings we are just now learning about.

So soon enough Pop and Jessie move in with Mom and Jessie’s siblings. Robert, her brother, hated them and Monica seemed to like them. Of course, Pop and Jessie where not living the life they wanted to live. Here is something I do not get. Looking like she does, Jessie was not popular in school. Are you serious Jessie? I wish I looked like that when I was in high school.

And because of her tortured life and pampered perfection, she goes to the planet Argo (again inside cover) and joins small time gangs. But her life in gangs stopped when she ran into a Merc called Methuselah. Methuselah randomly takes Jessie under his wing and makes her a Merc. Like all the guys in this comic, I think he just saw that awesome rack and just tried to figure out a way to make them his.

Jessie says that she really likes being a Merc and that she likes to do right by people with her job. Alright, that is noble enough.

Jessie says that when she found the star on the road, she was inspired to start up her own Merc company called the Stellar Rangers. These Rangers, to her, were a great mix of Merc and her history as a farm girl, I guess. With the money she had gotten, she was even able to bring her father back to Tropica and give him a new plot of land to stay on. But the farm life was not for Jessie anymore. Now all she wants is the Merc life.

Ok, art rant again. Does Jessie really need to lie down like that? Well I guess with melons that huge you do need to take the pressure off your back at sometime. And when did she remove her red tied top? Anyway, she then talks about all the techno babble she has in her Mary Sue suit. She also talks about how Methuselah (whom she calls Meth) taught her a scarf style of martial art that is used to distract opponents. Gene shares my sentiments. If they are fighting you Jessie, they are not going to look at your thin scarf at all. Gene then asks about her company’s team.

The first is a psycho with a robotic limb who likes to shoot things named Panzer. Seems like a normal choice to me. The second is a Teralite master (Inside cover again) who can also hack computers named Tsumi. But he has no direction in life and that makes him less of a man. Ouch, burn.

Gene asks if Jessie is going out with these guys (yes they are both guys) and Jessie quickly says no. She says they are more like Brothers to her then love interests. So Jessie drives Gene home and then she drives herself back to her place. When she gets back, she gets a call from her pop. Turns out he went to her place to surprise her and spent the day with her co workers.

Ha ha ha, how unexpected.

The comic has three other little stories that I am going to share with you. The first is titled “I’m just a girl”. 

Get it? Women only put on strong fronts and are still scared of stupid things like bugs. Even women who spent their whole childhood growing up on a farm and in fact should be used to seeing any kinda of vermin everyday since they had crops to grow. There is but one good thing about this mini comic. Jessie’s expression changes from panel to panel. Even if in the last panel she is in she looks more annoyed then scared.

The next one is called Student Teacher.

So I guess this was to say that Tsumi is awesome? I don’t know. Nor do I really care come to think of it.

Anyway the very last comic is called Opportunity Knocks. This comic does one thing really went. It sums up the creators into 2 very easy to read pages. 

Yeah. The writers really did write that into a free comic book that anyone could have picked up.

So, in the main story, what did we do? Well Jessie came home, scared a guy, wiped up milk, made supper, and acted like a porn star while talking about her back story. So this issue was nothing more than a flashback with boobs. Why did I pick this up again? Oh yeah, it was free.

In case you really wanted it, here is the link to the comic’s website: Contract Comic


Well next week I’ll have some free comics from this year’s event. So as it stands, I really have no idea what is coming up next week for you all. 

All images (c) Salvo Productions