The Man From Maybe trade paperback written by Jordan Thomas with art by Shaky Kane is out this week, and like the most delicious stew, it combines multiple genres together to create something that’s better than the sum of its parts. It’s the best story you’ll ever read that’s science fiction, horror, and western but also filled with dinosaurs. What stands out most in the book is Shaky Kane’s art, which seems like a fusion of Jack Kirby and Mike Allred’s work. Like both those artists, there’s a simplicity in the work that conveys both the grand and the bizarre and I enjoyed the art so much that after I finished reading the story, I went back to the beginning and flipped through the book again to enjoy the artwork.
The story itself is a solid one and feels like a great old pulp fiction novel. Taking place on a post-apocalyptic Earth, a Lone Ranger-style cowboy and his assistant Gopher (who travels in a machine-gun mounted hovercraft) roam the desert helping people in need and scavenging to survive. When an alien ship comes to Earth and one of the aliens goes berserk, the cowboy and his partner get involved in stopping it, even as other aliens from the planet try to stop a “Thing”-like creature that can possess beings and turn them into raging murderers. Phew! That’s a lot to swallow, but it’s a blast to read.
Much like the Clint Eastwood “Man with No Name” character from the Sergio Leone westerns, we never find out the name of the hero of the story. Unlike Eastwood though, the cowboy talks a lot, sounding more like John Wayne or Randolph Scott with his hokey down-home speech, but when it’s time for combat, he’s never against blowing someone’s hand (or any other appendages) clean off. I liked the dynamic between he and Gopher, who bickers with him but will always stand with him in a fight.
The book is populated with a variety of other characters, all rendered in great detail and ranging from the beautiful to the bizarre. Two of the most fascinating characters are Mister Denny, a wealthy man (who may not be human) with a haunting face who studies the effects of radiation on people in the landscape and Winnet Gator, a bounty hunter and tech master who’s brutal and efficient in her methods.
The first half of the book is action-packed but changes to a pure horror story in the second half, and both parts work well.
If you’re looking for a book that feels like a combination of Mad Max, Starship Troopers and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, check this out!
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