Imagine a smart phone app that allowed you to pay money to switch places with an alternate version of yourself in an alternate reality. Maybe there was an attractive male or female out there that you saw get on a train, but you couldn’t catch up to him or her because the door closed in your face. Well, with this app, you could pay money to switch places with another version of you, preferably one who was at the station a little earlier and made it on the train. Now, take a look at this comic called, Infinite Vacation.

This is a story of a guy named, Mark (Mark Prime). To be honest, he’s not that interesting of a person, but that’s why this story works for him. You see, this particular Mark doesn’t seem to be able to find satisfaction in anything. Who knows how long he’s been trading places with other Marks in other dimensions, but it’s safe to say that he’s been at it for quite awhile before we’ve gotten the chance to crack the book open. This is one of those books where the main character talks to the reader through narration, which I personally think is great. I feel like it’s been too long since I’ve read a comic like that… But that could be my own fault… Lately, my comic tastes have been all over the place, and before anyone says anything, Spider-Man’s self commentary doesn’t count. I’m pretty sure that when his narration boxes are filling the reader in, he’s really just talking to himself. Because honestly, if Spider-Man didn’t talk, he’d be kind of creepy, and I think that as a character, he knows this. But I’m off topic here.

After a brief explanation as to what the rules are for this comic’s universe, we’re given a peek at what the commercial for this awesome dimension-hopping application is like. Using a real guy, instead of a drawing, completely throws you off from what you thought the established tone was. This isn’t a bad thing. What I can make of it, writer Nick Spenser (Morning Glories, Shuddertown), is letting us know that we should expect the unexpected. After all, this is a book about buying your way into alternate realities. So anyway, Mark travels from life to life, never satisfied with any of them, save for one. And in this case, Mark-Prime meets a Mark who dropped out of college and started up a Surf Shop in Fiji. Surf-Mark never got into the Infinite Vacation, so Mark-Prime would just visit from time to time. Then Surf-Mark was killed. Which happens. Every person who uses the Vacation app happens to have a Google RSS Feed that lets a person know about all the alternate reality deaths of that person. But in the case of Surfer-Mark, things just didn’t seem right. Take that mystery and add a pretty girl to the equation, and we’ve got ourselves a story.

So what’s my overall take on this? I don’t know. I mean, I know I like it. But that’s about it. I’m satisfied. And that isn’t something that you can get out of a lot of comics these days. I have high hopes for Nick Spencer’s career and I definitely think that he’s apart of the good wave of “new” writers in comics. And hey, Christian Ward’s (Olympus) art is nothing to scoff at. The man has style. It’s like he’s using markers and paint at the same time, and it comes out solid. Every. Single. Time. This Spencer/Ward combo is a very good thing. So if we have any copies left in the store, be sure to grab it. After all, issue #1 is sold out through our distributor… But no worries, it’s going into a 2nd Printing, so if we happened to be sold out, you’ll have a second chance to read it on Feb. 16th. And that’s it folks. See ya next time.

-Fleet

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