Freakangels vol 1 back

Like a meeting of the Midwich Cuckoos, AKIRA and Channel 4's Skins, FREAK ANGELS is rather unlike anything Warren has done before.

Twenty-three years ago: twelve strange children were born, in England, at exactly the same time. Six years later the world ended. Now time moves differently, a flooded London holds the last real bastion of civilisation, thanks to eleven strange albino adults with psychic powers. Supposedly the first step in starting the world over, the clan holed up in Whitechapel are using their mental powers like mobile phones and sleeping with the locals instead of setting up the surviving population to be self-sufficient. But it seems one of their number could see this collective apathy a mile off, and had a radically different vision for the Freak Angels.

Warren isn't showing his hand with this series, and with twelve characters he isn't rushing to introduce everyone with action and explosions (by the end of book one we still haven't met the whole cast), opting instead to let the story unfold in its own time with the drama being the driving force rather than the techno-futurist theorising which has recently dominated his output in the likes of DOCTOR SLEEPLESS and ANNA MERCURY. The former is about a man trying to end the world, the latter about a woman trying to save the world(s) - but the Freak Angels in their youth ended it (whoops) and now wrestle with the responsibility of that mistake amongst bouts of sex, violence and growing strawberries. All of which they experience empathically as a group, that psychic connection being their greatest asset and most common agitator. After all, not all of them want to experience a non-stop orgy, nor do you want the group's pervo intruding into your thoughts with his idea of a good time.

Paul Duffield surpasses himself on art, depicting an extremely grotty post-apocalypse with incredible clarity. The skin looks dirty, and just a little unhealthy and when there is blood it looks so wet as to drip off the page. Paul adds a credible depth to the characters and locations, reinforcing this already stringently researched lo-fi sci-fi.