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Don’t Miss This: “Infinity 8” by Lewis Trondheim and others

By | December 19th, 2018
Posted in Columns | % Comments

There are a lot of comics out there, but some just stand out head and shoulders above the pack. With “Don’t Miss This” we want to spotlight those series we think need to be on your pull list. This week, we’d like to draw your attention to “Infinity 8,” an interlocking space opera comprised of eight three-issue installments, which was previously released in French beginning in 2016 by publisher Rue de Sèvres and the Comix Buro creator consortium. The middle issue of the third arc is out this week from Lion Forge and is a part of their always-intriguing imprint of English-translated European work, the Magnetic Collection.

Cover by Dominique Bertail

Who is this by?

The primary architect of the series is Lewis Trondheim, a name that may be unfamiliar to mainstream American comic readers. He is a decorated comic book veteran of nearly thirty years known for his prolific output and ambitious projects that are often infused with both low and highbrow humor. Trondheim is joined by an impressive roster of European comic collaborators as co-writers and artists which gives the series a unique and evolving visual aesthetic with each story arc as well as a slightly different narrative tone.

What’s it all about?

The Infinity 8, a luxury-class starship, is making its way to the Andromeda system with 880,000 passengers comprised of 257 alien races in tow. En route the giant ship encounters a giant floating debris field made up of derelict spaceships, bits of planet, parts of cities, terran monuments, and assorted junk with a common denominator: death. The captain of the Infinity 8, a member of the water-dwelling and tentacled ancient race known as Tonn Shar who is capable of manipulating time by resetting eight-hour intervals up to eight times, initiates Protocol 8 and charges various agents aboard the Infinity 8 with investigating the intergalactic roadblock. The first arc presents Agent Yoko Keren’s efforts to get to the bottom of the occurrence, but it is complicated by a insurrection of an alien race known as Kornaliens who are big fans of necrophagy. It’s further complicated by a Kornalien who falls madly in love with Agent Keren after ingesting the corpse of an alien love poet. The mission quickly turns from that of investigation of the floating debris to saving the spaceship from the Kornalien horde intent on creating even more dead things on which to feed. At the first arc’s conclusion, the timeline is rebooted to allow for another parallel investigation with measures taken to prevent the complications of the first timeline. The second arc involves the investigation of social-media obsessed Agent Stella Moonkicker who must thwart another mutiny involving the still sentient head of Adolf Hitler that is recovered by a group of Nazi enthusiasts from a rocket in the debris field. It turns out that the Nazi party members aboard the Infinity 8 are more into the iconography and interior design aspects of the now ancient genocidal party. After Agent Moonkiller’s companion robot follows his human-saving protocol and incorporates de führer’s head into his bio-tank, hell breaks loose rather rapidly when ol’ Adolf takes over the robot’s and ship’s systems in order to make another go at some genetic cleansing. By the time the threat is neutralized at the end of the arc, no more is none about the debris fields origins, but Hitler head is effectively neutralized for the next reboot. The third arc follows famed space marshal Emma O’Mara who is aboard the Infinity 8 as a vacationing passenger but is called into service by the captain to investigate the floating necropolis. Her arc features the biggest twist of the series formula to date, and I won’t spoil that here. Suffice it to say, any readers worried that the series would become repetitious are in for a treat.

Cover by Olivier Vatine

What makes it so great?

Back in March, I highlighted the first installment of this series as part of our Wrapping Wednesday feature and singled out its fun premise, cheeky tone, and built-in interlocking narrative construction as a series that held promise for enthusiasts of Heavy Metal-era sci fi. If anything, my enjoyment of the series has grown since that initial offering. “Infinity 8” is not for readers who take their science fiction too seriously. It’s pure camp with a dash of mature-themed satire. The series is built on such an ironclad concept that the narrative latitude is wide and far-reaching. While the mystery surrounding the appearance of the galactic artifacts remains well out of reach at this point, and perhaps even a McGuffin, it’s rife with unique and fun storytelling possibilities. Readers who surrender to the elaborately quirky storytelling will likely find themselves won over by the series’s many charms. Art enthusiasts looking for a window into the work of contemporary artists working in the field of European comics will likely find few better entry points. While we have what seems like light years to go before the series concludes, it’s hard to imagine that the balance of the series is not an equally invigorating comic book experience to what we’ve seen so far. We are in the hands of accomplished storytellers operating in a collaboration that allows them to put their best creative feet forward. So climb aboard the Infinity 8 for what continues to be a brazen and sublime comic book treat.

Continued below

Cover by Olivier Baleze

How can you read it?

The first two arcs have been collected in beautifully-produced, slightly-oversized hardcovers by Lion Forge and they are available from your favorite purveyor of comic books. The individual issues release like clockwork every month, skipping a month only to make way for the hardcover collections of the three previously released single issues. The single issues are likewise marvelously produced on high-grade paper stock with thick, ultra-glossy covers. The issues also contain a trove of wonderful marginalia, including tongue-in-cheek peeks into the creative process as well as character bios and faux advertisements for the Intergalactic Confederation tourism bureaus—of which the titular luxury spacecraft is a part—as well as fictional products targeted at the alien denizens of the “Infinity 8” world. There’s even recruitment propaganda to join the ranks of the agents charged to defend and protect the Infinity line of space cruisers. While the issues in the third volume diverge from this practice in favor of Lion Forge house ads in the backmatter, I cannot stress enough how nice the production quality is on these books, but if you are paper-averse, the series is also available digitally via Comixology in English and the original French. The latter is currently available through volume 7 while the former is available through volume 3, issue 2. Being able to read more of this rollicking series sooner is as good a reason as any to learn a new romance language, mes amis.


//TAGS | Don't Miss This

Jonathan O'Neal

Jonathan is a Tennessee native. He likes comics and baseball, two of America's greatest art forms.

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