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The Couriers #0
Couscous Express
Love, war, family and the best hummus recipe in New York City Scooter enthusiast and spoiled brat, Olive Yassin, delivers food for her parents' award-winning Middle Eastern restaurant, Couscous Express. She hates it. It's boring. She would much rather be hanging out with her courier-mercenary boyfriend, Moustafa. But when the local branch of the stylish and dangerous Turkish Scooter Mafia make a move against the restaurant, she knows she has to do something, anything, to protect her family. Couscous Express combines delicious food, automatic weapons fire, and scooter culture into a hectic, adrenaline-fueled story of love, family, war, and the best hummus recipe in New York City.
80 pages, Paperback
First published November 6, 2001
87 people want to read
About the author
Brian Wood
1,170 books962 followersBrian Wood's history of published work includes over fifty volumes of genre-spanning original material.
From the 1500-page future war epic DMZ, the ecological disaster series The Massive, the American crime drama Briggs Land, and the groundbreaking lo-fi dystopia Channel Zero he has a 20-year track record of marrying thoughtful world-building and political commentary with compelling and diverse characters.
His YA novels - Demo, Local, The New York Four, and Mara - have made YALSA and New York Public Library best-of lists. His historical fiction - the viking series Northlanders, the American Revolution-centered Rebels, and the norse-samurai mashup Sword Daughter - are benchmarks in the comic book industry.
He's written some of the biggest franchises in pop culture, including Star Wars, Terminator, RoboCop, Conan The Barbarian, Robotech, and Planet Of The Apes. He’s written number-one-selling series for Marvel Comics. And he’s created and written multiple canonical stories for the Aliens universe, including the Zula Hendricks character.
From the 1500-page future war epic DMZ, the ecological disaster series The Massive, the American crime drama Briggs Land, and the groundbreaking lo-fi dystopia Channel Zero he has a 20-year track record of marrying thoughtful world-building and political commentary with compelling and diverse characters.
His YA novels - Demo, Local, The New York Four, and Mara - have made YALSA and New York Public Library best-of lists. His historical fiction - the viking series Northlanders, the American Revolution-centered Rebels, and the norse-samurai mashup Sword Daughter - are benchmarks in the comic book industry.
He's written some of the biggest franchises in pop culture, including Star Wars, Terminator, RoboCop, Conan The Barbarian, Robotech, and Planet Of The Apes. He’s written number-one-selling series for Marvel Comics. And he’s created and written multiple canonical stories for the Aliens universe, including the Zula Hendricks character.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 18, 2016
With Couscous Express, Brian Wood almost pulls off what he always seems to be aiming for: the tough, streetwise hipster story. The scooter subculture of NYC provides a potentially interesting setting, Wood's trademark empty political slogans are notably absent here, and even Brett Weldele's artwork looks appropriately rough and gritty. Now, if only the characters were a little less concerned with being cool... Oh well, this is a Brian Wood story after all. Still, one of his more tolerable efforts.
August 12, 2017
A pretty silly story that lacks logic. In light of Wood's later work this story seems like a trial run for stories that take place in his long work DMZ.
If your a big fan of Brian Wood, and happen to see this in the library or something, its worth a read. Its a quick read. Just don't expect anything you haven't already read in a superior form.
If your a big fan of Brian Wood, and happen to see this in the library or something, its worth a read. Its a quick read. Just don't expect anything you haven't already read in a superior form.
September 9, 2015
Not quite the same level of what Wood did after that. Also, bad art
March 25, 2023
Out as soon as it's in. Very short and leaves no residue with me. It's way too simple, but at least the art is cool.
April 14, 2025
Too shoot 'em up for my tastes.
March 18, 2013
Taking place somewhere between the events of The Couriers Volume 3: The Ballad of Johnny Funwrecker and The Couriers Volume 1, and produced even before the first book, "Couscous Express" centers around Olive (Moustafa's girlfriend), a revenge plot threatening Olive's parents, and the couriers' saving them from it.
The art is provided by Brett Weldele, and the art style is more simplistic than in the other 3 "Couriers" books. Inconsistencies as to some of the characters' appearances (in relation to the other books of the series) are present, but that is understandable considering the order of production and the different artists involved (Rob G being the artist for the 3 other stories).
The art is provided by Brett Weldele, and the art style is more simplistic than in the other 3 "Couriers" books. Inconsistencies as to some of the characters' appearances (in relation to the other books of the series) are present, but that is understandable considering the order of production and the different artists involved (Rob G being the artist for the 3 other stories).
July 20, 2015
This is a fun, if short read that expands upon the Couriers characters introduced in CHANNEL ZERO, only this time the heavy, dystopian politics of CZ are gone and replaced with the energy and action of a crime story. In fact, it's not at all clear if COUSCOUS EXPRESS and the subsequent COURIERS volumes even take place in the same universe. But I digress.
Wood's writing does a fine job of driving the story along, and Brett Weldele's art is expressive and gritty. The art feels, sadly, a bit over-reliant on stretching art to fill panel shapes they weren't meant to, or otherwise duplicating panels rather than redrawing them. That can be forgiven considering this is Weldele's first commercial comics project, it was produced in 2001 when digital production in comics was still relatively new, and this was obviously a smaller project through a smaller publisher. This still ranks pretty highly on the list of Wood's independent work.
Wood's writing does a fine job of driving the story along, and Brett Weldele's art is expressive and gritty. The art feels, sadly, a bit over-reliant on stretching art to fill panel shapes they weren't meant to, or otherwise duplicating panels rather than redrawing them. That can be forgiven considering this is Weldele's first commercial comics project, it was produced in 2001 when digital production in comics was still relatively new, and this was obviously a smaller project through a smaller publisher. This still ranks pretty highly on the list of Wood's independent work.
May 4, 2015
Meh. Not much to this. The story of a 16-year-old girl, who delivers food for her parents' restaurant, and her 22-year-old boyfriend (although that point is never addressed), who along with his partner is a courier for somewhat illegal things. They get mixed up in a revenge story, and there are guns, shots fired, and explosions. The deaths and killings are pretty glossed over, and everything wraps up very quickly in the last couple of pages. The sketchy though straightforward art style is not particularly appealing.
May 2, 2010
Basic story, basic to elementary art style but woven together in a spell-binding manner that made the short 70+ pages flow until it was completed in a matter of minutes. Olive Yassin is both compelling and annoying simultaneously but you can't help rooting for her as she begins her coming of age through a series of ghetto gangster events. She can't help but get herself into trouble and we can't help but hope she overcomes.
August 19, 2007
This is a great graphic novel. An Arab American family and a Turkish gang in fez. Actually, its pretty hilarious in how stereotypical it is in some ways but how it breaks out of it in other ways.
July 17, 2008
the art may leave something to be desired, but the story in this one is fun!
August 10, 2009
A bit too breezy, but a solid action book that shows Wood's promise (now fulfilled in DMZ and Northlanders).
May 27, 2010
comics,crime,drama
April 17, 2011
scooter couriers who get mixed up in NYC crime.
July 4, 2012
20.50
August 24, 2015
I can't say I'm a big fan of the art, but the story mostly makes up for it. This is short, so the characters are a little thinly drawn, but it's a fun adventure with a few interesting themes.
February 3, 2022
Nice pictures but amazingly lazy writing.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews