One of my favorite things about reviewing comics is finding a hidden gem that no one’s really talking about and doing my part to help spread the word just a bit, and while Top Cow’s new ongoing series Postal (a product of their Minotaur Press sub-imprint) is, in fact,  generating at least a little bit of online “buzz,” given that it’s being released, as ever, by Image Comics, it’s understandably finding itself rather buried under all the hoopla surrounding the debut issue of Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham’s Nameless, which also comes out today. It’s probably not fair to say that Nameless is sucking all of the oxygen out of the room, but — well, it’s coming pretty close. So let’s do what we can to even the scales a bit here, shall we?

I’ll admit right off the bat to not being much of a fan of Top Cow’s “shared universe” titles, but they’ve published  some interesting workset outside of its confines lately, and in particular I found myself intrigued by their recent four-part “eco-thriller” mini-series Wildfire, which was written by Matt Hawkins (who’s probably more talented than his status as a Top Cow “suit” would lead knee-jerk readers to believe) and illustrated in superb fashion by Linda Sejic, so given that much of the Wildfire  crew has re-assembled itself for Postal (Hawkins is co-writing it along with Bryan Hill while Sejic is doing the covers and colorist extraordinaire Betsy Gonia is joining in on both the covers and interior pages), I was bound to give at least the first issue a look — and my oh my am I glad I did.

Postal is an exercise in fairly comprehensive “world-building” that centers on the fictional town of Eden, Wyoming (population 2,198) as seen through the eyes of local mailman Mark Shiffron. Mark’s got an unusual perspective given that he suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, and while characters with Asperger’s have certainly appeared in comics pages before (most notably in the form of American Splendor‘s Toby Radloff), this marks, at least to my knowledge, the first time one of them has been given center stage in any considerable way. Three cheers to Hawkins and Hill for doing a bit of trailblazing, then — and for absolutely “nailing it” in terms of Mark’s ongoing interior monologue as well as his dialogue and mannerisms — but how’s the story itself, apart from that?

So far, so good, I’m pleased to report — the “secret” Eden is built on (which I’ll refrain from “spoiling” here) is given away maybe a bit too early (it may have made for a nice cliffhanger “revelation” at the end rather than a “gotcha” moment halfway through the issue), but given the necessity of getting the murder mystery that’s apparently at the heart of the story rolling, I can understand why they structured the script the way they did. Apart from that, though, I have absolutely zero complaints about the quality of the writing here. Eden is a town populated by rich and diverse characters, and most of the notable ones are given a chance to make at least something of a mark in the story, with the back-matter “trading-card style” profiles at the end of the book serving to enhance our knowledge of them rather than acting as a crutch. These are all individuals you’re going to want to know more about, and I can’t really think of the last time that a series with such a large, ensemble cast arrived on the scene as well-thought-out as this one.

As for the art, it comes our way courtesy of relative newcomer Isaac Goodhart, who won Top Cow’s “new talent search” contest last year and is certainly deserving of a regular monthly gig. His style won’t bowl you over with its flashiness or anything (thank goodness), but he’s got a seasoned eye for visual storytelling and seems equally at home illustrating both the book’s slower, “talky” scenes and its dramatic, “high impact” pages. Postal has much the same “rural noir” feel as fellow Image series Revival, and Goodhart breathes a lot of life into the characters he’s drawing by imbuing each of them with unique visual “tics” and traits that make them instantly stand out. I’m probably not the first person to make this comparison and I doubt I’ll be the last, but the pacing and flow of the story and pictures here are also reminiscent of a number of early Vertigo books, and that’s pretty high praise indeed for both the writing and the art.

Yeah, okay,  so murder mysteries have certainly been done to death across all media, but when you populate a well-worn premise with unique and memorable characters and set it in an inventive locale, there’s a great chance that you’ll still be able to squeeze blood from a rock. I’m ready to go Postal — you should be, too.