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Hitpack #1
Review posted: 26 Dec 2005
Writer: Enrique Corts, Mar Hernandez
Artist: Enrique Corts
Colors: Mar Hernandez, Fabian Schlaga
Publisher: Hitpack
4.00 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Matt Rawson
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You won’t find Hitpack #1 in a comic store. You
won’t find it in a long, dusty comic box, or just sitting around
on a table, for that matter. That’s because Hitpack #1 is
the first fully digitally distributed comic. At first, you might be
taken back to those god-awful DVD comics a few years ago, or the
insanely frustrating digital comics that were first a printed comic
making the reading of them damn near impossible. Hitpack is a
new beast, however, and they seem to have finally gotten it right.
Hitpack certainly has manga influence, but
wonderfully absent are all the god-awful manga/anime clichés
that seem to stupidly permeate Western manga.
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Hitpack is the story of Amy Sanchez and, much more grandly,
of God and Lucifer. Amy is an unpopular, frequently bullied high
school girl who, guided by her strange dreams, falls into the task of
finding Lucifer. This task is given to Amy by Lilith, who also
provides Amy some astounding powers that allow her to survive a run in
with some very violent priests.
Now, Hitpack is certainly not Watchmen, but it is a
hell of a lot of fun!
For everything to work properly, the art must fit the story, and
the artwork is where Hitpack truly shines. It is clean, crisp
and the most animated still images I have seen in some time. The
crowning jewel, however, is the coloring. Not only is it some of the
most beautiful color work I have seen in a comic, but enhanced with
the fact that you are viewing it as light as opposed to ink makes
several pages, like the one showing Lilith’s castle, for
example, simply gorgeous.
At first one might see a homage to the Japanese manga style, but
readers are quickly taken away from that notion when the characters
come alive and the art truly becomes its own style. I am not a huge
fan of manga, and feel that it is saturating the current comics
market, making it more difficult for Western comics to get noticed
even in their own countries. This certainly colored my initial
perception of Hitpack, because nothing is more annoying than a
Western attempt at manga.
Whereas Hitpack certainly has manga influence,
wonderfully absent are all the god-awful manga/anime clichés
that seem to stupidly permeate Western manga. No school uniforms, no
giddy absent-minded female characters, no one giving that (shudder)
“victory” hand gesture, and no super-deformation.
Hitpack is not just another carbon copy of the latest popular
offering from the land of the rising sun.
The format of the comic is very close to a DVD. An animated menu
with subtle sound effects greets you with several options. You can
read a short introduction from the creator, read the comic, look at
production art, or get a step-by-step walk-through of the creation of
the “cover.” When you click on the option to read the
comic, you will notice several wonderful things. The page fits
perfectly to your computer screen, and there are no goofy voice-overs
or lame animations. Hitpack #1 was made to be read on your
screen, but it still retains all the essentials of a good
saddle-stitched comic. The best part of all, however, is the price
tag. All of this is quite a deal for $1.70!
Hitpack #1 is available for download at www.thehitpack.com. It is about
30MB, so a high-speed connection would be preferable. I, for one, am
going to keep up with this story and this new format to see just where
both might lead.
—CCdC—
Cover image used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
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