Ming Doyle Joins Quantum and Woody
Posted By Garrett Steele on September 17, 2013
Artist Ming Doyle is set to work on Valiant’s Quantum & Woody, and it’s a match made in heaven.
Doyle’s most public foray is probably her work at Image on Mara, with frequent collaborator Brian Wood. However, she also worked on a fantastic webcomic called The Loneliest Astronauts.
source: The Loneliest Astronauts
Astronauts starts out as “The Odd Couple in space,” but quickly takes a sharp left turn into the surreal. The entire time, Doyle’s detailed, often austere art drives the humor home that much harder. She’s very used to presenting the absolutely bizarre with a straight face, which is exactly what Quantum & Woody is about.
source: Valiant Comics
As for the book itself, Quantum & Woody is one of the most recent titles of the Valiant Universe relaunch. The original, created by Christopher Priest, is one of the few well-regarded titles to come out of the “Acclaim Comics” era, and has developed a bit of a cult audience.
The relaunch, is a bit different – the heroes are stepbrothers instead of just childhood friends – but it still has a lot of striking things to say about race, about family, and about the stupidity of “secret identities.” It follows a con man and a soldier who, after an accident, find that they are superpowered in proximity, and begin to fade from existence when they aren’t. The book shifts gears from earnest to absurd in the blink of an eye. For reference, the most recent issue opens with the duo fighting creatures engineered to evoke the world’s most common fears. (They couldn’t figure out how to incorporate heights and public speaking, but they got spiders, clowns, and needles!) It ends with the revelation of an international Edison cult, dedicated to the notorious businessman’s M.O. of blackmailing, stealing, and manipulating the greatest minds in the world, patenting their ideas, and using them for their own sinister ends.
Simply put, it’s a wild ride, and it’s exactly the kind of insanity that Ming Doyle excels at.
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