REVIEW: ‘You’ve Been Canceled,’ Issue #1

You’ve Been Canceled #1 from Mad Cave Studios is a near-future sci-fi bloodbath that is admittedly a bit more vulgar than my taste but nonetheless promises a wild and exciting ride through a cancel culture gone too far. Writing by Curt Pires, art by Kevin Castaniero, colors by Jason Wordie, and letters by Micah Myers, this is the tale of Roland Endo, the number one canceller around. His job? To livestream himself chasing down and murdering people his audience votes on canceling for their heinous deeds.

You’ve got to walk a thin line to write a good story about cancel culture without getting stuck in a political morass. I absolutely cannot tell from just one issue whether You’ve Been Canceled #1 succeeds at this or not, but it certainly sets itself up so that I’m still curious to find out. This not-so-distant future imagines that our societal propensities towards vitriol, self-righteousness, and violence culminate in a culture of instant gratification and parasocial detachment by way of live streaming, and frankly, it’s a pretty fair extrapolation of a mid-apocalyptic reality. I have no doubt that there would be an audience for such a thing here and now.

We don’t get a huge glimpse into Roland as a character yet. There’s a bit of backstory dipped into and we can tell he is immensely but rightfully cocky. The canceling jobs we see him go on are worthy of a bit of a chuckle for their obvious parallels to notable real-life scum. Still, there’s nothing especially narratively interesting that goes into those chases until the final pages shake everything up. I was not a fan of the interlude scene between jobs, but that’s just my taste, there was nothing particularly wrong with it.

Visually, You’ve Been Canceled #1 delivers exactly what you’d hope for from a highly violent near future. The kills are very graphic and visually exciting every time. I particularly admire the way that in his full armor, you get a sense that Roland is pretty old for a canceller. It shows on his face and in his body language. But when you later see him out of the armor and bare-chested, he’s also clearly still fully with it physically and fully capable.

I love the color palette and texture. It’s got a watercolor quality on both fronts, which feels distinct for the setting. Typically, I would expect lots of dull and dismal tones that yell “the world as you know it is over.” But in You’ve Been Canceled #1, the colors are eclectic and the tones are soft. It makes it feel like the visuals aren’t screaming at me, even as the action is intense and the lettering gets quite bold at key moments. The backgrounds are often awash in a single color that helps set the tone of the panel.

You’ve Been Canceled #1 is a visual delight helping deliver a concept that’s millage may vary but at least so far promises to offer some good thrills and a solid chance to find out if it can deliver on its premise.

You’ve Been Canceled #1 is available now wherever comics are sold.