4 out of 5

‘Somewhere in Kansas,’ a criminal is being interviewed by a doctor, with several bigwig types watching from behind the glass. The criminal speaks of the beings in his dreams; calmly mentioning that they’re soon to arrive…

Having not read any Kodoja before (this is apparently a preview of volume 4), I can’t say how this fits in to a larger story, but further pages and the cover show off some giant monsters and the bloody mayhem they’re set to unleash. This might be a familiar, Lovecraft-y concept (though the cover has more of a Godzilla vibe), but writer Keith Foster’s character dialogue, and the way the interaction is drawn, gives it an appropriate sense of ominousness. The art (credit to Rory Smith and Will Perkins) is presumably not final, as we’re looking at figure outlines with rough pencils, and a couple more finalized looking pages – the ones with the monsters – follow. That’s my only criticism here, is it’d be good to clarify that, although I guess if it is all final art… well, I dunno, that’d still be weird.

Anyhow, this is an ideal lil’ sneak peak of the book, and definitely makes me interested to check it out, which I’d consider one of the purposes of sneaking a freebie like this into an order I placed with other comics from the imprint.