Spectregraph is a new comic book series from five-time Eisner winning writer James Tynion IV and three-time Eisner winning artist Christian Ward. The publisher, DSTLRY, was founded just last year but is making waves with their focus on ethical publishing.

The first issue of this comic was a frustrating read for me. The art is gorgeous in most panels, but occasionally there will be panels with characters who are depicted with no texture to their hair or faces with thick, dense highlights. Ward’s artistic style is generally pleasant, and suits the content of the story most of the time, but the here-and-there panels that don’t work for me really don’t work for me.

The story presented similar issues for me. One of the key plot points is that the protagonist, Janie, is on her way to show a house and realizes she left her infant son in a high chair at home. Although I certainly understand that such things do genuinely happen by accident, it is Janie’s choice to not turn around that very nearly had me put the comic down. Holding a job is important; earning an income is important. Even when those things are at risk, though, you cannot choose to continue to leave a baby in a high chair for approximately five hours (presuming nothing will go wrong–which of course it does). With a newly two-year-old of my own, a distressingly low income, and poor job security, I cannot imagine leaving my son at home, in an unsafe place (a high chair seems far too dangerous in this circumstance), by choice. I’ll note that my partner also told me–unprompted–that he nearly put the comic down because of this as well.

I did push past this to finish the comic. The rest of the story is fine. There’s a mysterious death cult buying a bizarre clockwork mansion that can somehow generate ghosts. We don’t know much more than this by the end of the first issue, which is fine because it’s the first issue.

So, six stars? Yes. I don’t think I would re-read the first issue, and I am not inclined to say I like the comic, but I do intend to read issue #2. It’s worth checking out, in part because it’s from a new publisher and because I trust the author and artist to take the series to genuinely interesting places, but I’m also on the fence enough that a lackluster issue #2 would kill the series for me.