“Yesterday’s” Digital-First Comic> Motorcycle Samurai #0

Cover image from Top Shelf’s website. Not working in the comiXology version.

Motorcycle Samurai issue zero

Top Shelf Digital (date unknown as it’s no longer on the comiXology website, or what passes for it)

“Water And Sand”

WRITER/ARTIST: Chris Sheriden

The White Bolt travels the badlands on her motorcycle doing…samurai stuff I guess. This is a preview but it’s a full story showing her in action. While transporting some guy named Happy who wears a burlap sack with a smile drawn on it, our heroine stops at a ghost town to use the water pump when she’s surrounded by a group of bounty hunters calling themselves the Hornets. Apparently they’re just borrowing the name or something and she’s not impressed…especially when she takes them all down rather easily.

I’m not expecting a lot from the story, since it’s a preview, outside of introducing the world. There isn’t a lot of explanation. The fight is pretty good and she takes them down without killing any of them as far as I can tell. That’s a hero I can get behind. The art style is unique but fits the world well.

Where this comic shines however is how it uses its status as a digital comic. A print version of the series was apparently also made and the way the comic is presented is easy to translate into print but there isn’t forced-in animation that you have to hope you catch at the start of the animation loop. This is what old html based webcomics attempted to do, with gifs that were playing no matter where you were on the page. Here, each frame of the comic is part of the same visual page but different parts are shown as you scroll through, giving the illusion of animatic animation waiting for the in-betweens. It gives the comic a unique visual look that probably wasn’t translated to the print version but for this it’s quite inspired.

While I can’t comment on the whole series this was an interesting comic both in story and art but also in the unique presentation. Sadly I don’t know how you can see it in this form today beyond a short preview at Top Shelf’s website. The print version might be worth a look though.