I recently finished reading the complete series The Woods from Boom! Studios, featuring experienced writer James Tynion IV and artist Michael Dialynas.
This series was fantastic. I usually have a lot of patience to give when a science fiction theme teases, and will still find good in something when it’s all over, even if I didn’t like it. Not the case here. The Woods grabbed me from the first issue to the last. I ended up reading it because the cover on volume 1 looked interesting when I nearly knocked it off the shelf in pulling all the Wonder Woman I could get my hands on at the library. After watching the Wonder Woman movie when it was released this past summer, I went to find everything Wonder Woman related that I could get my hands on, and didn’t stop there. But if I hadn’t been looking for Diana to read about, I’d never have seen The Woods. And what a huge missed opportunity that would have been.
The Woods follows the story of Bay Point Preparatory High School after it vanished from the face of the Earth on October 16, 2013. About 500 people were displaced and looked outside the school to see a completely alien world, so far away from Earth that the stars in the sky are completely different. Some discovered quickly that this new world could be fatal, but some do survive. The main characters are all interesting, going through normal teenager problems like love, but also figuring out how to grow up on a planet filled with nightmares.
Earlier this year, The Woods won a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Comic Book in 2017. Among the main characters are gay and lesbian couples as well as a transgender boy. It might take place light years away, but The Woods actually feels light years ahead of its time.
Netflix fans might feel like The Woods embodies a feeling of what might happen if the unrenewed Sense 8 and Stranger Things were to come together in a graphic novel.
Once you greedily devour The Woods completely, you’ll be left wanting way more, even though the ending is not a cliff-hanger. But, never fear, I have a solution for that! The Syfy channel has partnered with Boom! Studios to create a TV series for The Woods. From the looks of it, nothing official has been announced on whether this show is actually in production yet, but in checking rumored director Brad Peyton’s imdb page, there is no listing for The Woods. Let’s hope that changes soon and we may yet see a TV show in 2018.
Have you read The Woods? Tell me what you thought in the comments below!