BOOM!; $3.99

The first issue of Eat the Rich introduced Joey and Astor, a young couple about to face a summer-long test. Joey is meeting Astor’s family for the first time – his filthy rich family. Astor is taking her back to Crestfall Bluffs where he’ll try to stay sober around his family and friends at countless parties.

There’s also that part at the end of the first issue when Joey saw some of the Crestfall Bluffs men hacking up a retiring groundskeeper while others waited to cook him.

Issue two opens with a terrified and traumatized Joey trying to tell Astor, who has taken a sleeping pill by this point, what she saw. When that doesn’t go well, she starts snooping through the house, and that’s when Joey learns the second disturbing truth about Crestfall Bluffs.

This new book by writer Sarah Gailey, artist Pius Bak, and colorist Roman Titov is off to a good start. The disparity between the haves and have nots is always fertile storytelling ground, but having the rich eat the help is much more overt in its symbolism. What Joey learned in this issue adds another layer to the metaphor for money’s effect on society.

Part horror and part social commentary, Eat the Rich is quite interesting.

-Amanda Sheriff