Written by Jonathan Hedrick
Art by Luigi Barricelli
Colors by Rubin Curto
Letters by DC Hopkins
Editor Dimitrios Zaharakis
Published by Blackbox Comics

“There is a forgotten paladin who protects us from our nightmares while we sleep. Without him, we may never wake up again. He is the Dream Master. His curse is to guard our unconscious bodies from an evil entity who wishes to enter our reality, collapsing it for all eternity.”

Buckle up for a kaleidoscope dreamscape, featuring a protagonist with one of the coolest character designs in comics. Dreams are a scary place where monsters are real and if you die in your dream, you die in real life. Reading this story really hit me hard. I’ve known some people who have died in their sleep without much of an explanation. Seeing this comic explore that concept a bit is awesome. Tack on a bit of heroism from our paladin, Dream Master, and we’ve got one hell of a tale here.

Luigi Barricelli’s artwork is phenomenal and he spares no expense to background details and designing interesting aspects of the dream world and interesting creatures to be defeated and get a dreamer back safely in the waking world. I could stare at the beautifully insane dreamscape for hours and continue to find new and intriguing details. I expect we will see a lot more from Luigi in the years to come because this is top notch artwork.

Rubin Curto’s colors complement the lines and further flesh out both the beautifully fascinating of the world and the morbidly horrendous. The most impressive part about Curto’s work is the colors displayed in Dream Master’s mask and clothing. The vibrancy of the universe appears to be seen in ever changing colors of pinks, purples and blues. Outside of that, the colors are sometimes drab, but this tends to draw the attention to the characters moreso. As always, letter DC Hopkins nails it with both the dialogue and sound effects seen throughout the story. The use of different colors for Dream Master’s text makes me think that they must speak a very with a voice that is at times very ethereal and mystical.

This story hits hard, dives deep and really gets you thinking about beauty in the world and just how many times have you personally been saved by the Dream Master when you’ve awakened with the sensation of falling. If you’re looking for a story packed with action, monsters, horror and deep conversations about the nature of dreams, then get ready for Dream Master #1 releasing in shops on November 30th!

Rating: 9/10