A New Dawn For Mystery In Morning In America #1
by Josh Davison
[*Mild Spoilers Ahead!]
The place is Tucker, Ohio, and the year is 1983. A quartet of high school girl troublemakers, Nancy Salazar, Veronica Hotchkiss, Ellen Mackie, and Ashley Difiore, (also known as the Sick Sisters) struggle to fit into their school or this nowhere town. They aren’t doing well in school either, and something strange is going down there. Four students have gone missing, two of which in the past week alone. Everyone’s nervous, but the cops and the school aren’t giving the students any information. A strange run-in between Nancy and a junkie gives her a clue that something huge may be going on in Tucker.
Morning in America #1 gives the reader their first taste of Tucker, Ohio and the people who live there. The story pivots around the Sick Sisters and their tribulations while giving a slight insight into who they are. Ellen is the sexually active smart mouth, Nancy is the clear-headed pseudo-leader, Veronica is Nancy’s large and loyal companion, and Ashley is the youngest and innocent one.
It’s a diverse cast with interesting, and at-times clashing, personalities.
It drops hints about the reason behind the disappearances, and it uses the trope of the strange one with the hyperactive imagination giving an outlandish theory that they may or may not have gotten from fiction–but you know they’re probably right on the money.
The whole thing also has a nice Twin Peaks-y vibe to it too, which I dig.
Claudia Aguirre’s artwork is gorgeous, and it gives the world a sleek and distinct aesthetic that suits the characters and narrative tone well. The characters are expressive, their clothing fits the early 1980’s, and the action scenes (the few that there are) look quite good. Aguirre’s color art is heavily-contrasting and dazzling, bringing the visuals together quite well.
Morning in America #1 is an interesting and grabbing first chapter for this new Oni Press series. The characters are engaging, the story is interesting, and the art is quite solid. Then again, what else would you expect from Magdalene Visaggio and Claudia Aguirre? This one gets a recommendation. Check it out.
Morning in America #1 comes to us from writer Magdalene Visaggio, artist and cover artist Claudia Aguirre, letterer Zakk Saam, and variant cover artists Aguirre, Elizabeth Beals, and Rii Abrego.