With Should I Be Reading… ?, ComicsAlliance hopes to offer you a guide to some of the best original ongoing comics being published today, and this week we're focusing on some of the very best science-fiction in comics. Discover the world of tomorrow with ComicsAlliance's Sci-FI Week!

Writer Rick Remender and artist Matteo Scalera have created not just one dense, beautiful, wondrous world in Black Science, but several for readers to explore as Grant McKay and the Dimensionauts explore the alternate realities of the Eververse.

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

Grant McKay, ex-member of the Anarchistic Order of Scientists, has cracked interdimensional travel. He built a device called the Pillar, which he can use to travel between the various dimensions of the Eververse. (Think of the Eververse like an onion, with layer upon layer of dimensions to explore.)

 

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Via the Pillar, McKay and his team of “Dimensionauts” --- other scientists, an ex-military security officer, the man who bankrolled the project, and McKay’s two children --- explore these alternate worlds... and pillage them. McKay is not exactly a good guy.

Things go wrong, though, as they always do. Someone from the team sabotages the Pillar so that they can’t choose which dimension to jump to or when.

Black Science follows the team as they explore these alternate, often terrifying dimensions, trying to get home. But who sabotaged the Pillar? Can they trust the members of their team? And how hostile are the other dimensions in the Eververse?

 

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WHO’S IT BY?

Black Science is written by Rick Remender and drawn by Matteo Scalera. Remender is a man of many talents, having written for comics and video games and created art for album covers, animated films and comics. His creator-owned works include Fear Agent, Low, Deadly Class, and Tokyo Ghost. A lot of his work centers on science fiction.

Matteo Scalera was one of the winners of a 2008 Marvel talent contest. His credits include The Indestructible Hulk, Secret Avengers, Deadpool Team-Up, Valen the Outcast, and Dead Body Road. The book's colors were initially provided by Dean White, but he was replaced by Scalera's Dead Body Road art partner Moreno Dinisio.

 

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WHAT MAKES IT SPECIAL?

McKay makes for a fascinating main character. He’s a huge jerk --- to the people he works with, his family, and the woman he’s having an affair with (also a scientist on the Pillar project). Having his kids along with him as they travel through the Eververse allows for really interesting family moments, especially when he encounters an alternate version of himself who wants to take McKay’s children to replace his own who died during his experiment with the Pillar. Even as the Dimensionauts explore wild new worlds, the story is grounded in fantastic characterization.

Each new dimension McKay and company visit feels visceral and real (and usually terrifying). Scalera’s art complements this perfectly. It’s gritty and raw and a little dirty. This comic lacks the gleaming chrome-and-white aesthetic of many sci fi stories. Instead, Scalera’s art and White and Dinisio’s colors give these alternate dimensions a truly otherworldly feeling.

 

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WHO SHOULD READ IT?

Anyone who loves the look and feel of vintage sci-fi. Fans of the old Sliders TV show. Anyone who loved both the space exploration and intimate character moments in Mass Effect.

WHERE CAN I READ IT?

Black Science is available in print and digital formats from a variety of retailers. It has been collected into five trade paperbacks and a deluxe hardcover collecting the first 16 issues, along with sketches and concept art. Issue #25 of Black Science will be available October 12, 2016.

 

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