2 out of 5

Tom Peyer, in the backmatter of issue #1 of High Heaven, speaks to the genesis of the idea for the book, had in conversation with co-creator Mary Siau, remarking, rather cynically, that the area in which they were sitting – a sterile, manufactured-sheen neighborhood – might as well be heaven: “Why should paradise be any better?”

It’s a worthwhile springboard idea, and helps to get one of the creative endpoints of that – High Heaven – off to a grabbing start: Heaven imagined as almost a dumping ground for the average deceased: get your cubicle living station, some free cheese and crackers, and some public access TV running non-stop in the background. Front man Dave – who’s arrived in heaven after walking ‘neath the old standard of a falling piano – isn’t too keen to spend his time in such a heaven, and voices, loudly, what would likely be most of our complaints about such an arrangement. Artist Greg Scott has a nice style for this, sort of heavy and sketchy and thus maintaining a sense of realism, but set against very clean, defined backgrounds and negative space, allowing the eye to easily track across the page. Peyer positions Dave as outspoken and whiny, but not unrelatable; he’s the common man who’s pissed off at everything being so goddamn common. It’s a little weird that no one else seems to feel the same way Dave does – everyone, including St. Peter, is sort of pissed at him for moaning so loudly – but the quirkiness of the concept works in the book’s favor to keep us invested in what Dave will do next.

Unfortunately, Dave doesn’t _directly_ do anything next: the story acts on him, and in a way that takes us away from that initially intriguing concept. Peyer builds in a conspiracy, and he also jumps back to much-less-interesting reality to touch base with the girl Dave liked, Heather, and both of these elements prevent Dave from getting much time to develop on his persona. And so he continues to whine. And the conspiracy feels half-baked: enemies who become friends for cryptic reasons, which turn out to be incredibly weak reasons; and a similarly cryptic plot device called L-Meat which is then explained away with a weak acronym. When we get peeks at a different part of Heaven that seems a bit more heavenly, and at Hell, it becomes more evident that Peyer has neglected to really outline the “rules” of how this realm works beyond the joke setups in that premiere issue.

AHOY, as per their m.o., has stuffed each issue with unrelated text pieces and a jokey adventuring-explorers short called Hashtag: Danger, which pads the 20 page stories effectively. The first arc of High Heaven is readable, it just doesn’t do enough with its setup, and leaves its lead relegated to a rather annoying role. However, things end in a position that could lend itself to second arc improvements, so I’m not against seeing where it goes from here…