Dial H #14 – Review

By: China Miéville (story), Alberto Ponticelli (pencils), Dan Green (inks), Richard & Tanya Horie (colors)

The Story: If you can dial an apocalypse, can someone dial an eleventh-hour save?

The Review: As we get ever close to this title’s demise, I should say that for anyone hoping for a last-minute stay, a sudden surge of loyalty from the fans—well, this isn’t Chuck, so don’t expect it.  Turning to some relatively hard numbers, although Dial H gained a rank last month, it also simultaneously lost about 400 buyers, bringing the grand total of June readers to somewhere around 11,900—solid figures for Vertigo or Image, but hardly for a Big Two book.

All we can really do now is cherish however many issues we have left.  I admit I’m not quite as wholeheartedly attached to this series the way I was with, say, Xombi or even Saucer Country, but I am deeply disappointed to see it go just as it’s starting to reach its prime.  The introduction of the dimensional wanderers, the Dial Bunch, opened the floodgates of story possibilities, adding half a dozen different dialers and an infinite supply of settings for Miéville to play in.  All of it will have to go to waste now, unless Vertigo decides to pick up the series itself.*