Author: Matt Page
Title: Future Day Saints: The New Arrivals
Future Days Saints, Volume 3. 2023
Comic, 100 pages, 8″ x 10″, full color.
Reviewed by Sean Leslie
Matt Page is back with a third installment of his Future Day Saints series, this one being called The New Arrivals. It was released in July and I have been slacking on reviewing it so I am finally hoping to shed a well deserved spotlight on it. Again it is filled with fun ads for toys, music, and video games that have made the first two must haves for all lovers of Mormon culture or people who love rich imagination and fantastic world building.
The New Arrivals is a graphic novel about a race called the Moriancumer who left their home planet on a ship and journeyed to New Zion. They are met by the cast from the previous books (Liahona, Kid Kolob, Dr. Sunstone, etc) and are then shown the customs and helped to integrate into New Zion the society.
Stories always need conflict. I can only think of one off the top of my head that doesn’t and that would be Hiroshi Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro. And that movie worked largely because of the tone. And oddly enough, The New Arrivals has no conflict either — except for a short story at the very end titled “The Book of Hot Drinks” where Hot Drinks takes a sword echoing Ammon’s story in the Book of Mormon. And yet, it works brilliantly and proves how gifted of a story teller Matt has grown into where his strengths are not just his love for Mormon lore. Matt’s genius in this volume is when he weaves in current social commentary with his characters making the story seem all too relevant and important. We see Dr. Sunstone giving vaccinations, Buzbee feeling regret for using a racial slur he was unaware of, Z talking about the importance of culture, and Matt even found a way to work in people’s pronouns when referring to the three headed Nephite, Triple Combination, and much more.
Matt has always been a gifted artist and it is impressive to see him consistently improve with each Future Day Saints release. What really shines in this one is his use of colors and halftones. They are GORGEOUS. Matt has such a gift for illustration and every reader is in for such joy because of it. My absolute favorite part of the book is when Kid Kolob shares her world with one of the new Zioneers whom she has a huge crush on. It is a wordless montage until the end and at the beginning it says it is set to the song “Falling for You” by the fictitious band in New Zion named The Mighty Zioneers. While we don’t have a physical song to play over this part of the book, our imagination lets us imagine any music we want and it is, dare I say, perfection. I wish it went on for 8 pages longer. It was so beautiful and the end exchange of dialogue the two characters did share was so heartfelt.
There is a bountiful supply of pin-ups throughout the book as well as the end where Matt invited many of his friends to chip in and share their vision of his characters and each one is frame worthy. As stated before, this book’s illustrations are striking and you should take the gamble and purchase it if you haven’t already. The world building and Matt’s imagination is something we could all use a little more of. He stated he doesn’t know if there will be another volume. But if the quality keeps getting better and better as it has, we all owe it to ourselves to start hounding him for another.