Sally of the Wasteland is a relatively new series from Titan Comics, so far only on its second issue. The story follows Sally and a group of survivors of some unknown apocalypse as they try to enter New Orleans to re-establish some kind of civilization by way of a quasi-magical device. Titan advertises this a grindhouse genre, while also claiming that it is “Tarantino meet Mad Max!” Before giving my thoughts on the story though, it is maybe interesting to look into some of the meanings of those claims.

Grindhouse is a relatively new concept in terms of being a specific sub-genre. Though it is based on the sex, violence and gore fueled B-movies of the 1970s, most of which have never been seen since, there is no better personification of the genre than Quentin Tarantino. Strangely though, it is not because Tarantino has really ever created a grindhouse movie, aside from a singular homage to the genre which he released with Robert Rodriguez in 2007.  Even in terms of the actual genre, this was not really grindhouse exactly, more like a campy version of it, as it was relatively well-budgeted with recognizable actors. Grindhouse isn’t really a specific genre, as there is too much leeway allowed in what qualifies. There has to be a lot of sex, or a lot of violent action, or a lot of gory horror, but not necessarily more than one of those three.  In those respects, grindhouse really resembles a lot of movies, even modern ones. The realm of comics never really escaped from grindhouse either, at least not completely, as some degree of sex, violence and gore has always been available (though maybe not under the Comics Code).

The connection of Tarantino to the genre of grindhouse is a little tenuous, and so too is the claim that this book is “Tarantino meets Mad Max!” Tarantino is not exactly a style unto himself, except in some of the subject matter which he chooses for his stories. His stories are often undoubtedly violent, but this violence almost always serves a purpose of some kind. It is not there solely for gratuity, but moves either the story along or develops a character. To be honest, I am not even a particularly big fan of Tarantino, but I have seen both an episode of ER and an episode of CSI that he has directed, and they were both more exciting than the typical episodes of those shows.  When he is outside of his own favorite genres, there is still something evident about him in his own work, which film critics label as being an auteur. The problem with being an auteur is that it is rare that someone can replicate the work of that individual, and even sometimes the individual themselves have a hard time grasping what it is that makes audiences love them so much.

Thus outside of the somewhat generic post-apocalyptic landscape this story doesn’t really have much to tie itself to – a hard-to-define genre and a hard-to-copy auteur. That having been said, even within the somewhat generic setting there is still ample ground to profit here. I have discussed with other writers of creative fiction that a story needs either an interesting premise or interesting characters. Though ideally a story has both, it can survive with only one of these, and this is where the writer here could make the characters something grab onto.  Unfortunately they are not that either. They are mostly shallow typecasts that speak under their breaths in parody-like commentary which is meant to be funny but mostly falls flat. There is also an alarming amount of references to rape (including anal rape) in this title, which are likely to turn off some people as well. On the whole, I can see where the creative team might have gone here, but that they lost their way early on and didn’t find their way back. It is a shame too, because the covers for both the first and second issue are actually really enticing, it would be nice in this case if I could judge a book by its cover, but I cannot.

Story: Victor Gischler Art: Tazio Bettin
Story: 4.0 Art: 5.0 (bonus marks for the cover) Overall: 4.5  Recommendation: Pass

 Titan Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for revewi