Red 5 Comics has a new five issue miniseries coming out in May called ‘Foster Broussard: Demons of the Gold Rush’. The company describes it as “‘Pirates of the Carribbean’ with a little ‘Maverick’ and ‘X-Men’ thrown in.”

The story in the first issue is more Maverick than PotC, but hopefully later issues will add an X-vibe. The synopsis is “In 1849, suave British con-man Foster Broussard comes to San Francisco hoping to find his fortune and save his neck in the California gold rush. His multi-layer grift spins out of control as stumbles between an American Industrialist and an ancient evil spirit held in check by a Native American tribe.” The plot was well paced and the dialog was entertaining. The cliffhanger leading to the second issue was a little obvious, but fun nonetheless.

The artwork is very good although there are points when the art team (penciller Dan Glasl and inker Amber Gant) makes sure to add little details, like brickwork on walls in the background, buttons on the clothes of background characters, or smoke from faraway chimneys, but then will forget to add the correct number of buttons on the clothes of characters in the foreground. This isn’t overly distracting, but weird in spots.

The lettering was a little too angular and stylized, but unlike a lot of non-standard fonts, it was legible. There were also some spelling errors, but once again, they weren’t overly distracting. The color artist used a nice unoffensive color pallet, which was also used as shading.

The first issue is worth checking out. The Diamond order code for the first issue is MAR111238. Pre-order it.