Review- NO PLACE LIKE HOME VOL. 1: HOME AGAIN

NO PLACE LIKE HOME VOL. 1: HOME AGAIN (Image, 2013; Softcover)

Collects No Place Like Home Nos. 1-5 (cover dates February- October, 2012)

Writer: Angelo Tirotto

Artist: Richard Jordan

The gist- Dee comes home to Emeraldsville, Kansas, basically the middle of nowhere, after five years of living in the “big city” (L.A.). Her parents were killed by a freak tornado...or, more accurately, something that came from the tornado. The same thing that killed the town drunk/nut's brother during the last freak tornado in 1959. 

The writing and artwork are both great, really top notch, professionally done stuff. Paul Little's colors also help add an air of genuine creepiness to the proceedings. Richard Jordan is a tremendous artist. How have I never heard of him before now?

There are numerous references (or “Easter Eggs” as the kids call them) to The Wizard of Oz throughout this book. Between Wicked and that new Oz movie, this book couldn't be better timed. This book ends on something of a cliffhanger, but it works. I'm definitely in for Volume 2.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4.25 out of 5.

The OCD zone- The cover image on this book sucks. It looks a cheesy Zenescope fanboy spank book and belies the quality of the story.

Paper rating: 5 out of 5. Beautiful, thick coated stock paper.

Binding rating: 4 out of 5. Glued binding is par for the course on softcovers.

Cardstock cover coating rating: 2 out of 5. As the march toward books going all-digital continues, the decontenting of dead tree editions will only hasten their demise. Case in point this godawful wafer thin coating that gets scuff marks with the gentlest of handling. Horrible. The only thing that might excuse this is that the book carried a low MSRP of $9.99.

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