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Debris
In the far future, humanity has doomed planet Earth to rot and decay, covering her surface with garbage. Now, ancient spirits called the Colossals rise from the debris and attack the remaining survivors, forcing the human race to the brink of extinction. After an attack leaves their people without water, Maya, the last Protector, sets out on a journey for pure water, to save the world before the monsters bring it all to an end.
128 pages, Paperback
First published February 19, 2013
92 people want to read
About the author
Kurtis J. Wiebe
181 books768 followersKurtis Wiebe is a Vancouver, Canada based author. The founder and CEO of Vast Vision Publishing, he comes from a two decades long career in comics and games. He is the co-creator of over ten original comic series and a content creator spanning podcasts, live streams and other digital media. His stories have garnered multiple industry awards including two coveted Shuster’s for best writer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
September 14, 2017
I just couldn't get into this one. I tried, and it's an interesting concept. I loved the designs for some of the larger mechanical monstrosities, but the story as a whole just never clicked for me. There are so many post-apocalyptic stories out there that it's hard to stand out from the crowd, and this one just didn't make the cut. It's a short quick read that ends abruptly and will leave many feeling letdown by the hurried, unfinished ending. Also, if anyone's played the video game Horizon Zero Dawn (which I haven't had time to yet), that game's premise sounds just like the setup of this book.
January 21, 2016
Debris is a short 4 issue comic that's really pretty basic. It's a pseudo-post-apocalypse where Earth has been covered in garbage and ancient spirits called Colossals (which seem to be some sort of mechanical creatures) threaten the last tribe of humanity. Enter in a journey to a prophesied land of fresh water and I'm sure you can imagine what happens from there.
The art was interesting. It's very simple and nothing is overly detailed. Far away characters have no facial features. The color was a very artistic style that was more like a charcoal painting, which I enjoyed. Except for the fourth issue in which the art was very sketchy and unrefined, I'm not sure if it was on purpose but it felt very unfinished to me.
The art was interesting. It's very simple and nothing is overly detailed. Far away characters have no facial features. The color was a very artistic style that was more like a charcoal painting, which I enjoyed. Except for the fourth issue in which the art was very sketchy and unrefined, I'm not sure if it was on purpose but it felt very unfinished to me.
April 4, 2018
Very cool and original! Love the art
April 21, 2016
Given that the author of Debris is writing one of my favorite graphic novels of all time (Rat Queens, Vol. 1: Sass & Sorcery), I was kind of disappointed by this one. I'm rounding it up to three stars because of the artwork.
The basic premise of Debris is that humanity has screwed itself over and is now struggling to survive amidst the garbage that covers the Earth. A young woman named Maya is living in the only known human settlement that's left, a small village known as Maiden. When robotic monsters destroy Maiden's water supply, it's up to Maya to find out if the mythical paradise known as Athabasca (rumored to have an endless supply of fresh water) really does exist.
Unforunately, Wiebe takes an interesting concept and just never delivers on it. There were some interesting world-building elements but entirely too many confusing elements and TSTL decisions for me to enjoy it. The plot has numerous holes, questions that are never answered and an incredibly rushed ending. This was written right before he started Rat Queens, so maybe that's why. The artwork is pretty fantastic, it's downright gorgeous throughout. Debris is possibly worth your time, depending on how much you like conclusions.
Full series review here
The basic premise of Debris is that humanity has screwed itself over and is now struggling to survive amidst the garbage that covers the Earth. A young woman named Maya is living in the only known human settlement that's left, a small village known as Maiden. When robotic monsters destroy Maiden's water supply, it's up to Maya to find out if the mythical paradise known as Athabasca (rumored to have an endless supply of fresh water) really does exist.
Unforunately, Wiebe takes an interesting concept and just never delivers on it. There were some interesting world-building elements but entirely too many confusing elements and TSTL decisions for me to enjoy it. The plot has numerous holes, questions that are never answered and an incredibly rushed ending. This was written right before he started Rat Queens, so maybe that's why. The artwork is pretty fantastic, it's downright gorgeous throughout. Debris is possibly worth your time, depending on how much you like conclusions.
Full series review here
May 15, 2014
I was kind of disappointed with this book. It started off so well but never really got into what the enemy creatures were or why what happened when they got wet happened. Then, it just sort of ended, like everyone just got tired of working halfway through an issue and hastily scribbled some pages and called it done. The equivalent of trying to finish that essay that you had a month to write and you started the night before but aren't finishing until two minutes before it's due. So much potential...
December 4, 2014
The art in this was really pretty and while I did enjoy the story a lot, I spent a lot of the time feeling like I was missing important information and backstory on the world it was set in. I was satisfied with some of the answers I had by the end, but not all.
December 22, 2015
I loved this book. The art is reminiscent of Geoff Darrow. It starts off great with an intriguing premise. My only complaint is that the end felt very abrupt. I had to go back to make sure I hadn't skipped a page b/c everything is just all of a sudden resolved out of nowhere.
February 9, 2017
I really liked this book. The only problem was the ending was far too abrupt, there wasn't enough of it! There needs to be a sequal/prequal to explain more of the world, and what happened to make it how it was.
July 20, 2014
the story was pretty interesting, but totally rushed at the end which leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions.
June 2, 2015
Interesting idea but I found the writing very mechanical and the art was sometimes confusing
December 17, 2023
DEBRIS – Wiebe, Rossmo
Post-apocalyptic story (yes, another one) where the generic elements are fused to make a tale - humans are trying to survive on a planet Earth that has critically damaged eco-systems -the machinery gods seek to devour humanity. The ‘chosen one’ – the ‘warrior princess’ - ‘only bastion left’ – myth of a promised land – the exiled crazy man joins up with the courageous princess - etc. ***
#1 – “Calista was right. Yes, you are ready .. Protector.”
#2 – “What do we have here?”
#3 – “Why don’t you just shoot it, Calista?”
#4 – “The journey ahead will be treacherous.”
Post-apocalyptic story (yes, another one) where the generic elements are fused to make a tale - humans are trying to survive on a planet Earth that has critically damaged eco-systems -the machinery gods seek to devour humanity. The ‘chosen one’ – the ‘warrior princess’ - ‘only bastion left’ – myth of a promised land – the exiled crazy man joins up with the courageous princess - etc. ***
#1 – “Calista was right. Yes, you are ready .. Protector.”
#2 – “What do we have here?”
#3 – “Why don’t you just shoot it, Calista?”
#4 – “The journey ahead will be treacherous.”
November 6, 2018
I so wanted to love this one. Post apocalyptic, strong female lead whose sole narrative purpose isn’t to land a man, great art... but it all fell a bit flat for me. I think it really only reached 2.5 - because it was far too predictable - but the art is great, it passes the Bechdel Test, it wasn’t as bad as, say, going for another run, and there’s no .5 option on Goodreads as far as I can tell, so 3 it is.
October 5, 2021
The plot is slight and simplistic, and never engages with the interesting premise. There's a world to explore here, and questions to be answered, but we get none of that. The art, in particular the storytelling, is strong, but on the whole this is a wasted opportunity.
(Except it's not wasted, because Horizon Zero Dawn came along four years later and did almost exactly the same thing, but better.)
(Except it's not wasted, because Horizon Zero Dawn came along four years later and did almost exactly the same thing, but better.)
February 5, 2019
An imaginative, dystopian, one-shot adventure following Maya, the protector of a village, as she wanders beyond the walls in search of a legendary city with the last fresh water on earth. Packed with action and dynamic fight scenes between humans and biomechanical creatures, I thoroughly enjoyed this comic.
January 28, 2018
Incomplete and not fully-fleshed out, but imaginative enough to be enjoyable. It helps that the artwork is nice, too (odd though how it changes in the last, and artistically best chapter). This could have been something quite good with more development.
March 8, 2023
Not the worst thing, but I’m not sure the world needed another post apocalyptic tale about searching for water. That being said, I still think Riley Rossimo is criminally underrated. Part of that may be that the projects he chooses are not always the best written.
March 8, 2023
Started off interesting but wonder if maybe the comic got cancelled very early on or the writer just didn’t know how to expand the story? Interesting and likeable enough main character, nice artwork but the story ends out of nowhere. Wouldn’t waste much money on this.
September 9, 2017
An odd little gem. Interesting and quick story with gorgeous artwork.
January 22, 2018
Not sure what I think of this great idea good storyline just hope that there's gonna be a next volume.
November 26, 2021
Okay, quite short and struggled to get into it
March 11, 2024
Extra star for the artwork. This is probably my favorite thing by Riley Rossmo. The story is fine. Pretty simplistic. It definitely could have been fleshed out more.
February 15, 2013
I’m quite thrilled that Kurtis J. Wiebe has found success with PETER PANZERFAUST (see Peter Panzerfaust Vol 1: The Great Escape), his re-imagining of the Peter Pan story set during World War II. A television adaptation has been put in motion and several of the single issues are currently coveted among collectors and speculators. And it’s an excellent book. But in the end, it’s still a retelling of Peter Pan, and I hope the title’s success leads people toward Wiebe’s other, more original work, including DEBRIS, which is being released in a collection from Image on Feb. 19.
The trade paperback collects issues #1-4, likely the entirety of the series. DEBRIS first caught my attention because it reunited Wiebe with artist Riley Rossmo. I was quite impressed with their work on the cult favorite GREEN WAKE (see Green Wake, Volume 1), and was equally dismayed when the title was cancelled and the final issue had to wrap things up rather hurriedly. Wiebe went on to make PANZERFAUST and Grim Leaper, while Rossmo went on to illustrate Rebel Blood and Wild Children. All were enjoyable, but there was still a GREEN WAKE-shaped hole on the shelves each month, and I hoped the pair’s DEBRIS might help fill it.
DEBRIS is the story of the last remnants of humanity fighting to stay alive in a vast wasteland prowled by creatures assembled from spare parts and seemingly held together by some sort of shamanistic spirit beings. A small village called Maiden is guarded from the beasts by Maya, a Protector. When the only source of fresh water in the town is destroyed, Maya must set out to search for a legendary city said to be the last source of “living water” in the world.
Wiebe’s dialog has a natural flow. His characters rarely speak in the clumsy declarations so often found in comics, and there’s a dry wit and intelligence to his writing that always makes me wonder how he hasn’t yet been poached by one of the big two. He writes Maya as a young and ambitious warrior, somewhat of an outcast even in her own group. Her mentor, Calista, trained her from a young age, and Maya knows only the mission. Her interactions with fellow village members are stiff and antagonistic at times, and it’s only when she’s out in the “Debris” and meeting outcasts like herself that she seems comfortable.
Rossmo’s artwork is distinct. He has a knack for drawing mean and nasty creatures and for expressive faces that stop just short of being overly cartoony. His figurework is top notch and his inky, scratchy style is a good fit for the many horror titles he’s illustrated, most of which are colored with dark or muted palettes. With DEBRIS, however, Rossmo’s art takes on a new brightness that is both recognizable as being from his pen and a departure from the dark style he’s become known for. Much of this probably has to do with colorist Owen Gieni’s bright, Easter-basket palette. Gieni’s sun-bleached colors look great on the printed page (and probably look even better on a backlit tablet), but they don’t diminish the frightful robotic monstrosities that Rossmo has constructed.
Rossmo provided art for issues #1-3 and was credited with “breakdowns” for issue #4, with Gieni finishing the pages. The final chapter looks a lot like pages from the first three issues but without Rossmo’s charactaristic hard inked lines. It’s a curious shift that I’m guessing had to do with the book’s short life span.
The book is a fascinating yet small look at a post apocalyptic world with deep connections to the earth and the spirit world. There’s plenty of action, and a few twists and turns that I wasn’t expecting. It’s also one of the most colorful books I’ve read in ages.
Alas, the final chapter, much like Rossmo and Wiebe’s previous comic GREEN WAKE, felt rushed. The final pages make a huge logical leap that left me scratching my head and only sort of understanding what happened. There’s a rather ho-hum epilogue that I would have gladly traded for a few more pages of actual exposition to help bring Maya’s story some closure, but all in all the book succeeds in telling a wonderful little sci-fi tale. I still miss GREEN WAKE, but I’ll take an occasional collaboration like DEBRIS from these two talents when I can.
Originally published at Comic Book Daily.
The trade paperback collects issues #1-4, likely the entirety of the series. DEBRIS first caught my attention because it reunited Wiebe with artist Riley Rossmo. I was quite impressed with their work on the cult favorite GREEN WAKE (see Green Wake, Volume 1), and was equally dismayed when the title was cancelled and the final issue had to wrap things up rather hurriedly. Wiebe went on to make PANZERFAUST and Grim Leaper, while Rossmo went on to illustrate Rebel Blood and Wild Children. All were enjoyable, but there was still a GREEN WAKE-shaped hole on the shelves each month, and I hoped the pair’s DEBRIS might help fill it.
DEBRIS is the story of the last remnants of humanity fighting to stay alive in a vast wasteland prowled by creatures assembled from spare parts and seemingly held together by some sort of shamanistic spirit beings. A small village called Maiden is guarded from the beasts by Maya, a Protector. When the only source of fresh water in the town is destroyed, Maya must set out to search for a legendary city said to be the last source of “living water” in the world.
Wiebe’s dialog has a natural flow. His characters rarely speak in the clumsy declarations so often found in comics, and there’s a dry wit and intelligence to his writing that always makes me wonder how he hasn’t yet been poached by one of the big two. He writes Maya as a young and ambitious warrior, somewhat of an outcast even in her own group. Her mentor, Calista, trained her from a young age, and Maya knows only the mission. Her interactions with fellow village members are stiff and antagonistic at times, and it’s only when she’s out in the “Debris” and meeting outcasts like herself that she seems comfortable.
Rossmo’s artwork is distinct. He has a knack for drawing mean and nasty creatures and for expressive faces that stop just short of being overly cartoony. His figurework is top notch and his inky, scratchy style is a good fit for the many horror titles he’s illustrated, most of which are colored with dark or muted palettes. With DEBRIS, however, Rossmo’s art takes on a new brightness that is both recognizable as being from his pen and a departure from the dark style he’s become known for. Much of this probably has to do with colorist Owen Gieni’s bright, Easter-basket palette. Gieni’s sun-bleached colors look great on the printed page (and probably look even better on a backlit tablet), but they don’t diminish the frightful robotic monstrosities that Rossmo has constructed.
Rossmo provided art for issues #1-3 and was credited with “breakdowns” for issue #4, with Gieni finishing the pages. The final chapter looks a lot like pages from the first three issues but without Rossmo’s charactaristic hard inked lines. It’s a curious shift that I’m guessing had to do with the book’s short life span.
The book is a fascinating yet small look at a post apocalyptic world with deep connections to the earth and the spirit world. There’s plenty of action, and a few twists and turns that I wasn’t expecting. It’s also one of the most colorful books I’ve read in ages.
Alas, the final chapter, much like Rossmo and Wiebe’s previous comic GREEN WAKE, felt rushed. The final pages make a huge logical leap that left me scratching my head and only sort of understanding what happened. There’s a rather ho-hum epilogue that I would have gladly traded for a few more pages of actual exposition to help bring Maya’s story some closure, but all in all the book succeeds in telling a wonderful little sci-fi tale. I still miss GREEN WAKE, but I’ll take an occasional collaboration like DEBRIS from these two talents when I can.
Originally published at Comic Book Daily.
March 3, 2013
The cover image doesn't do much to show you what this book will be about. Debris was one part Alien, one part Transformers, and one part something else. Like the synopsis says, the story takes place far in the future. In this grim future, Maya, a kick butt heroine has to set out to save her people-- the remaining few of humanity.
Her quest takes her to some very dark places. She battles monsters that look like they could be from Transformers/Aliens. Maya is pretty hard core, which I thought was awesome. I was fully expecting a male leading role in Debris, so finding a girl willing to swing a sword and slice up aliens was epic. The story was original, and paced out pretty well. Like most graphic novels, the plot is too condensed. But that's graphic novels, eh?
What really stood out was the amazing illustrations. Every page was full of great details and vibrant colors. The characters' faces were very expressive... all the way down to their eyes. I think the illustrations really made this book. They were able to capture the futurustic feel perfectly, while still retaining some of the believability of a story set on earth.
Her quest takes her to some very dark places. She battles monsters that look like they could be from Transformers/Aliens. Maya is pretty hard core, which I thought was awesome. I was fully expecting a male leading role in Debris, so finding a girl willing to swing a sword and slice up aliens was epic. The story was original, and paced out pretty well. Like most graphic novels, the plot is too condensed. But that's graphic novels, eh?
What really stood out was the amazing illustrations. Every page was full of great details and vibrant colors. The characters' faces were very expressive... all the way down to their eyes. I think the illustrations really made this book. They were able to capture the futurustic feel perfectly, while still retaining some of the believability of a story set on earth.
March 5, 2013
Debris takes place in a a world that has been left to rot with its surface is covered in garbage, nature is on the decline, and fresh water is scarce. The main character, Maya lives in Maiden, where she is the guardian in training dedicated to fighting the large mechanical creatures called Umbrals inhabited by animal spirits.
The water supply for maiden is detroyed when her mentor, Calista, dies protecting Maiden from an Umbra, Jormangand. She goes on a quest to find the fabled city of Athabasca, where water is plentiful. This begins her quest to save Maiden.
The writing flows very well throughout this TPB, all the gaps of how the inhabitants of Maiden came to live in this desolate apocalyptic world are filled in towards the end. The artwork is very pleasing o the eye and also helps the story flow. It was very easy and enjoyable read.
The water supply for maiden is detroyed when her mentor, Calista, dies protecting Maiden from an Umbra, Jormangand. She goes on a quest to find the fabled city of Athabasca, where water is plentiful. This begins her quest to save Maiden.
The writing flows very well throughout this TPB, all the gaps of how the inhabitants of Maiden came to live in this desolate apocalyptic world are filled in towards the end. The artwork is very pleasing o the eye and also helps the story flow. It was very easy and enjoyable read.
May 21, 2013
I like when a graphic novel is complete, not leaving most of the story open for a potential second volume. Debris has a finality to it that I enjoyed. The imagery in this graphic novel is really cool. The creature creations are done really well. They are so intricate. I feel like this whole graphic novel is a modern take on an 80's cartoon tv show, especially with the robot animals.
This was a nice post apocalyptic adventure story that wraps up in just one volume. I give this graphic novel a 4/5.
This was a nice post apocalyptic adventure story that wraps up in just one volume. I give this graphic novel a 4/5.
March 1, 2013
At first I wasn't impressed, but as the story progressed I couldn't help being drawn in. Nevermind the vague origin and nature of those creatures in the urban landscape, nevermind the abrupt transition across lengths of time (this I like, but is confusing at first). That Maya, at first the seemingly innocent, naive waif, is a bad ass.
A great quick read.
A great quick read.
March 29, 2014
I really enjoyed the 'green wake' series these guys did so I picked this up being fans if both. The art and story were fine, and I liked the ending a lot. It wasn't as good as green wake, and that's probably unfair as this is a different style if story, but still enjoyed the read and would pick up more by either if these guys.
August 9, 2015
Absolutely gorgeous artwork and a lovely cycles-of-life type story. Found the action a bit difficult to follow and there were some abrupt narrative jumps.
July 24, 2013
Pretty art. Nothing story.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews