Advance Review: Cardoselli’s Artwork Saves `Don’t Spit In The Wind’ #1

If you ever though you had the worst job in the world, consider Travis of Don’t Spit in the Wind.

Travis is a specialized garbage man, meaning he cleans up the toxic waste on Earth – specifically around New York City. We learn in the first few pages of the premiere issue that most of humanity has abandoned the planet to live in an orbiting space station. Travis and his colleagues have the inevitable tasks of cleaning the land, the water and the air. As he puts it, “My job is shit. The planet is shit. Life, in general, is shit.”

And yet, things seem to be getting even worse in the WALL-E-gone-wrong world. One of Travis’ fellow sanitation engineers goes missing. Travis sends fellow garbage man Rodriguez to investigate while he battles a swarm of locusts.

If those sound like fairly mundane plot points, it’s largely because they are. Other than introducing readers to the handful of main characters – we briefly meet Travis’ love interest Cassandra – there’s not much else happening in this chapter.

Writer and artist Stefano Cardoselli creates an interesting, yet familiar, world for his readers, but leaves them high and dry when it comes to much happening. Sure, there’s a mystery when we learn what happened to the missing trash collector, but it’s not much to pin a series on.

Cardoselli’s artwork is what truly brings this story to life. His chunky lines and generally dirty pages fit in perfectly with his tale of a trashed and abandoned Earth. Dan Lee’s colors (he pulls double duty as the letters as well) helps readers to make more sense of the artwork.

With the artwork as the clear draw, Cardoselli needs to up his game on the story in subsequent issues to make this series one worth reading each month.

Don’t Spit in the Wind #1 will be available for purchase on March 29, 2023.