20 cool psychedelic comics to read after seeing Thor: Ragnarok

SpaceRiders (Cover image via Black Mask Comics)

5. Space Riders

Science fiction is clearly a rich vein for comics creators. Even for those who are more interested in straightforward storylines can find a lot to get excited about in sci-fi. Even if you’re a hard sci-fi fan (for example, if you think the ultra-realistic travails of everyone in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars is the best the genre has to offer), there’s still room for wonder and speculation. Science fiction trades on the impossible or near-impossible.

This all makes science fiction easy ground for growing mind-bending psychedelia, too. Think of all the real-life ways to bend time in the universe (what with near-lightspeed travel and all of those time and space-warping black holes) and the hope that you could meet some really weird-looking aliens, too. It’s practically begging for a gloriously strange tale. Who are we to blame the artists that answer the call?

Artist Alexis Ziritt and writer Fabian Rangel went this genre route when they created Space Riders. This series revs up to a high octane level that will leave you practically breathless in places.

The basic plot follows Captain Peligro and his crew and they travel through a Technicolor cosmos in the skull-ship Santa Muerte. Yeah, that’s a spaceship shaped like an actual human skull. Just go with it.

There are plenty of grand space battles, very odd and very beautiful landscapes, and plenty of action-style gore. Beyond that, it’s hard to accurately describe the depth and energy of Space Riders. Reviewers have variously called it “[expletive] sublime” and said that “it looks like it came directly out of Jack Kirby’s id”. Perhaps you should just experience it for yourself.