Wow. I mean, wow. I’m reading one of the coolest graphic novels I’ve run across in years: Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead. It’s a genre slice-and-dice mix of police thriller, horror and science fiction. Alice Hotwire, you see, is an exorcist…and a detective…she’s an exorcist detective. She and her colleagues on the police force are tasked with dealing with the city’s dead. Zombies? No. Ghosts.
Yes, Hotwire is a ghost buster/exorcist/detective, a drop-dead gorgeous techno-geek that puts restless spirits down with a little help from an awesome inventory of weapons and gadgets. Most ghosts are harmless, but when an angry specter with out of control telekinetic powers and more pyrotechnic boom than a 14 year old pyromaniac on the Fourth of July focuses its wrath on the living, the only thing that stands between them and their victims is Alice.
Based on an original story by one of my very favorite comic book writers, Warren Ellis, and gorgeously illustrated by Steve Pugh, Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead is available in trade paperback from Radical Books, the same company that produced the similarly amazing The Last Days of American Crime and the official Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency comic series (More about that one later!) If you’re into techno-horror, you’re going to be into Hotwire. Pick it up at your favorite local comic book shop or online.
