MISDIRECTION IN A WORLD OF MAGIC: A review of SMOKE AND MIRRORS #1 and 2

Perhaps the most interesting character to pop out of recent comics is Mr. Ward, who is rather a curiosity in the new book from IDW, SMOKE AND MIRRORS. You see, he’s a magician, the kind who does card and coin tricks. Cups and balls. You know, the classics.



Here’s the thing, though: SMOKE AND MIRRORS doesn’t happen in our world. It takes place in an adjacent universe, where magic is very, very real. Instead of electricity, magic runs all of the technology, from automobiles to thermostats. When we first enter this world, we see a Steve Jobs-ish kind of presentation of a new product called Gesture. In order to get all the world’s devices to work, you have to speak incantations to them. However, that can be pretty cumbersome, especially if you’re doing other things, like talking to friends. Here’s a new voice-free magic technology that depends on hand gestures instead. (By the way, instead of Apple, we have the Trade Circle, a coven who comes up with innovative new ways to use magic.)


In the crowd is young Ethan, a rebellious student who claims to have already seen someone doing magic using hand gestures, a guy doing tricks on the street. Enter Mr. Ward, who apparently comes from another world, a world where magic doesn’t exist, only magic TRICKS.


Ethan, curious as to how something like that could work, barges his way into Ward’s life and demands to be taught all of these skills. So goes the first couple of issues of SMOKE AND MIRRORS.


Writer Mike Costa doesn’t waste time coming out and saying that Ward comes from a world like ours. Like any good magician, he uses hints and clues. For example, Ethan finds a handgun in Ward’s trunk and has absolutely no idea what it is. Also, when Ethan sneaks up on Ward, Ward gives out a shocked exclamation: “Jesus!” Well, guess who doesn’t exist in the world of SMOKE AND MIRRORS. Oh yeah.


Not content just to tell a story, Costa enlists the aid of magician Jon Armstrong to put a few tricks into the books themselves. In one very notable scene, they depict Ward fanning out five cards, asking the reader (YES, YOU!) to think of one of these cards. In the next panel, he removes one of the cards, fans out the rest, and says, “Your card is gone.” Surely enough, IT IS! Magic? Well . . . maybe not. Maybe just psychology. Because legerdemain doesn’t exist in the world of the story, nobody knows what it means to force a card.


In enlisting the aid of artist Ryan Browne, whose old fashioned style actually makes Ward look like a magician from the times of Houdini, they have gotten the perfect crew together to do this book. Buy a copy, and you’ll be wowed. Even if you don’t enjoy the story, you’ll at least have a magic trick to try out on your friends. It might even get you free drinks in a bar, if you use it right.


SMOKE AND MIRRORS #1 and 2
Written by Mike Costa (with Jon Armstrong)
Illustrated by Ryan Browne
Published by IDW
22 pages
$3.99