Innovation is the lifeblood of Assorted Crisis Events, a series that fearlessly shatters the boundaries of what comic books can be. From its first issue (out March 12), the creative team—writer Deniz Camp, artist Eric Zawadzki, colorist Jordie Bellaire, and letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou—dives headfirst into experimentation, embracing the unpredictable and surreal.
At this point, it’s safe to say Camp’s ambition is palpable, and his scripts push the limits of storytelling, which is the case here. At the same time, Zawadzki crafts a visual world that feels equally chaotic and deeply human. The creators are not content to merely tell a story; instead, they play with form and perspective, exploring time and crisis in inventive and emotionally resonant ways.
Camp has described the series as having each issue containing a complete narrative that simultaneously threads into a larger, ongoing mystery—a thrilling high-wire act where each team member elevates the material with artistry and precision.
At the heart of Assorted Crisis Events is a central premise that feels both high-concept and intimately grounded. Time itself is unraveling with sometimes bizarre and often tragic results. In this reality, knights and cyborg soldiers share space with cavemen in a modern city’s red-light district. But these aren’t just flashy sci-fi scenarios—they’re human stories of ordinary people confronting extraordinary chaos, holding on to hope, identity, and survival as their world disintegrates moment by moment.
Courtesy Image Comics
Assorted Crisis Events #1 opens on a clock ticking until it falls from an explosion and then stops. The clock’s owner is a woman who is simply trying to get this clock fixed. Oh, if it was that simple. She can’t leave her home without encountering chaos outside her door, and that’s just half of it. Camp and Zawadzki do a good job grounding the chaos as we follow her about her day. Meanwhile, she has somehow normalized all the nonsense of time travel and characters portalling into the world around her. This is at once relatable and fun to follow.
What makes Assorted Crisis Events especially compelling is how its chaotic world reflects the instability of our own. In an era defined by political polarization, technological upheaval, and existential fears—climate change, pandemics, economic uncertainty—time itself often feels broken, as if history and progress are constantly doubling back on themselves. Just as characters in the series navigate surreal, overlapping crises, so too do we find ourselves trapped in cycles of misinformation, déjà vu-like conflicts, and crises that escalate before we can catch our breath.
Camp and his team tap into this pervasive anxiety, using the distortion of time as a metaphor for our fractured reality. It’s a disturbing first issue that feels surreal yet grounded, fantastical yet familiar. It captures the disorientation of living in a world where history repeats itself, and the future seems as unstable as a person being frozen in place for no reason at all.
Camp and his collaborators have crafted something entirely new for the anthology format, where the tension between reality and collapse becomes a stage for tragedy, comedy, and redemption. Although it’s impossible to fully gather how the anthology format will affect the series with only one issue read, it’s fairly obvious the skies the limit.
Zawadzki, Bellaire, and Otsmane-Elhaou work in perfect synergy to create a visual style that is both disorienting and grounded. Zawadzki’s intricate linework and playful compositions evoke the surrealism of comics like Doom Patrol while keeping the characters relatable. Bellaire’s color work is great at creating striking contrasts while maintaining realism. It’s also distinct in how it balances surrealism, dynamic storytelling, and deeply human emotion amidst the chaos.
Assorted Crisis Events #1 is a triumph of imagination and execution, offering a disorienting but compelling vision of a world where time is unraveling. Camp, Zawadzki, and their creative team balance chaos and clarity well, delivering a comic that’s both surreal and achingly familiar to our own. The first issue proves that experimentation can be exhilarating, and as far as ambitious debuts go, this one feels like a game-changer. Reality is crumbling, and you won’t want to miss a second.
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