You probably loved playing with toys, dolls, action figures, plushies, or something like that as a kid. That’s what we nerds do. Our role-playing games allow us to travel through worlds in our minds, invent stories, and escape reality, which, as good as it may be, doesn’t involve fighting with swords, so our imagination is better. But what would happen if these become a reality? Swords lose their appeal when you can get killed by one.
Kill Your Darlings #1 by Griffin Sheridan, Ethan S. Parker, Bob Quinn, and John J. Hill is the story of Rose, an eight-year-old girl with a wild imagination. She has created a kingdom with allies, enemies, fighting, and peace treaties. However, she is no longer in control, and her fantastic world crumbling seems to influence her real life in a very non-childish way. A story described as Toy Story meets the Sandman or The Chronicles of Narnia meets Hereditary is a fantastic tale that takes us back to the happy moments of our childhood.
As an exemplary Issue #1, this book gets you from page one, and the pace doesn’t slow down. It introduces excellent characters and sets up intriguing stuff, and knowing from interviews that this book will get bigger in scale and stakes, I can see that we are in for a complex ride through various topics such as growing up, childhood, creation, relationships, and passion.
Speaking of passion, I’m a witness of Ethan and Griffin’s passion for comic books from all those years ago when they made podcasts, and I joined as one of their supporters on a Patreon page. They are people that breathe comic books, and it shows. They have created a book about a child who creates complex worlds, and as a creator and fan, I can relate to escaping reality and getting into your own stories. It’s a comic book that every medium fan will deeply enjoy.
Bringing the experience to the team, Bob Quinn does fantastic work balancing the cuteness of toys and the innocence of a young age with the gore and destruction more related to the adult world. It’s an unexpected contrast that works perfectly for the audience it’s directed to. Despite the fluffy characters, this book will appeal to 90’s kids, now adults who struggle with the real world outside their fantasies.
Therefore, Kill Your Darlings #1 it’s a great entry point for new readers in their 20s-30s who want a trip down memory lane to simpler times, setting a disturbing What If? and making us relieve our happiest memories with a twist that will make everything seem grim. It’s an excellent debut by Sheridan and Parker and a fantastic start to a world that has the potential to become something for the ages.