Comic Info
Comic Name: Bug!: Adventures of Forager
Publisher: DC Comics/Young Animal
Writer: Lee Allred
Artist: Mike Allred/Laura Allred
# of Issues: 6
Release Date: 2018
Bug!: The Adventures of Forager #2
Reprints Bug!: The Adventures of Forager #1-6 (July 2017-February 2018). Bug is dead…and he’s just a Bug. Or is Bug alive and he’s actually a New God? Bug aka Forager finds himself on an adventure through time and space to stop a potential disaster. Aided by a talking teddy bear and a mute girl, Bug finds himself teamed with the Losers, the Sandman, O.M.A.C., Deadman, and others in a race against time…and New Genesis could be the one needing saving.
Written by Lee Allred, Bug!: The Adventures of Forager is a DC Comics mini-series published under DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint. The comic is a collaboration project with Lee Allred, Mike Allred, and Laura Allred with Mike and Laura providing the art and coloring.
I don’t know much about Bug. I know he’s from the pages of New Gods, and I know that he’s one of a race of “Bugs”…which is his catch. He claims to be an individual while everyone else tells him that he’s just a cog. The “cog” gets his day in this series as it unrolls in a weird, trippy fashion.
The story is a “typical” odd Fourth World story. Bug bounces from dimension to dimension with pseudo-science, with strange sidekicks, and ends up saving New Genesis and meeting the Source. If you’ve read any of New Gods, The Forever People, or Mister Miracle, you may get an idea of what you are headed into when reading Bug. It is heavy and heady…while some comics have a little bit of story each issue, each issue of Bug feels like a long free standing comic book adventure of olden days.
Bug!: The Adventures of Forager #6
The series is largely an homage to Jack Kirby. Not only does the series have the weird Fourth World mentality, but it also presents tons of Kirby’s creations as Bug falls into different dimensions. It is a pretty deep dive with characters like Atlas and even Kirby’s take on the Sandman (which also appeared in Vertigo’s The Sandman) and the stories do tie into some of the stories written by Kirby. While you don’t necessarily need to know them to understand Bug (it is hard enough if you do), it will enrich Bug to see how they tie in to the bigger story (the comic actually takes place after the events of Cosmic Odyssey).
One of the best parts of all Allred projects is the art. Allred is the perfect person for this project since his art appears as a direct descendant to Kirby’s art. It has all the Kirby charm but it also has the new stylistic aspects of modern series applied to it…making you wonder what Kirby’s world would look like today.
Bug!: The Adventures of Forager isn’t an easy read and sometimes it buries itself in the time twisting adventures…much like a lot of Fourth World and Kirby’s stuff. For that reason, you need to be in a certain mindset to enjoy it and read it…and if you just let yourself go with the story you can. I wish that Bug had continued or that a second mini-series would start up…I think Bug still has potential and more weird, wild worlds to explore.
