Review: Dream Thief #1

By Reboot

Courtesy of Dark Horse Comics

Today, Issue #1 of 5 of Dream Thief will be available at your local comic shops.  This book is put out by Dark Horse Comics, written by Jai Nitz with art by Greg Smallwood and a gorgeous cover by the legendary Alex Ross.

From Dark Horse Comics:  After stealing an Aboriginal mask from a museum, John Lincoln realizes that the spirits of the vengeful dead are possessing his body and mind while he sleeps! His old problems have been replaced by bloody hands and the disposal of bodies—and now remembering where he spent last night has never been more important!




I was unfamiliar with the team of Jai Nitz and Greg Smallwood, so I was excited to check out something new.  For the most part, Jai and Greg succeed in creating something new and fresh looking.  Some of the highlights for me were the layouts and the brilliant colors.  This comic bounces back and forth in an effective way from detailed colors to more simplistic color schemes with high contrast that really pop like in 215Ink’s Vic Boone.

The lettering also really stands out in this.  I feel that many people overlook lettering but it really is incredibly important.  They made some good choices in this book that made it feel fresh and interesting (at one point someone has a thought bubble with the “like” thumbs up in it which I absolutely loved).

The overall feel of the book to me compared to some of the more popular Image titles, Marvel’s Young Avengers, etc.  The pacing of the story was great too.  It felt dense.  Where I feel many books would have ended at the first twist, this book kept going and used its 22 page count to the fullest, which more books should be doing.

Courtesy of Dark Horse Comics

I had very few gripes with this comic.  First would be that the young, white, smart aleck jerk protagonist, who thinks he’s better than everyone else, has been coming up a lot in comics lately (Think Tank, Great Pacific, Green Arrow, to name a few) so that part wasn’t entirely new.  In the middle of the issue, there was a scene where the two main characters were talking about stealing something valuable.  Even though they establish in the first couple of pages that the protagonist isn’t exactly trustworthy, the leap to contemplating a theft like that was a little too much for me, but not so much that I couldn’t enjoy the comic.  Lastly, the end twist, which was done very well in context of the comic, was something I’ve seen in a couple of comics recently.  Not that it wasn’t still original, I just was not entirely surprised at the end.

All in all, Dream Thief #1 was a solid read pushing the constraints of the medium with some originality to boot.  I would recommend this book to anyone that’s looking to try something new.  I hope to see Jai Nitz and Greg Smallwood’s names on more books in the not too distant future.

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