Pals, I was fortunate enough to get to read THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH #1 from @JamesTheFourth, @Martin_Simmonds & @adityab, and I was blown away. One of the best first issues of the year, launching what is sure to be one of 2020’s essential comics, all involved on career-best form.

I’m a sucker for alternate history stuff, and in some ways this feels like a lost entry in the Jonathan Hickman canon, given the niche he’s established here. In particular I was weirdly reminded of Hickman and Pitarra’s THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS, a comic I deeply loved.

But James Tynion IV brings a very different energy to THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH, something much more horror infused. This is horror none-more-timely, picking at the scab at all our anger and antagonism at the Q-conspiracy types and finding something viscerally scary underneath.

I’m not going to get into the plot specifics beyond those broad strokes, but the concept here is killer. Like the best ideas, and the most frightening ideas, it taps into one of those anxieties that on some level perhaps we’ve all had and gives it expression.

And @Martin_Simmonds, man. I’ve always loved his stuff, always found him a lovely guy, and it’s been so fulfilling seeing him jump onto bigger and bigger projects, a sweet reminder that sometimes hard work and talent ARE rewarded. And this is his biggest showcase yet.

He knocks it out of the park with the aesthetics on this book, crafting a vibe of a nightmare, of spiralling into madness, his visuals like a blend of stumbling onto old archival footage you’re not supposed to see and a fever dream. It’s fantastic.

So yeah, THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH #1 drops next month. You’re going to want to pick this one up, or spent the rest of the year listening to everyone else buzz about it while you wait for a reprint. It gets my highest recommendation.