The heroes of the Dirty Mind are in a precarious position with minions of dystopian authority. They will have to compromise if they’re going to escape harm relatively unscathed in the seventh issue of SFSX (Safe Sex). Writer Tina Horn and artist Jen Hickman reach the end of the opening arc of the series in a somewhat anticlimactic final chapter of the “Protection” story arc. There’s some resolution here, but the final issue in the opening arc is mainly falling action that feels pretty bleak. There is promise of great things to come in chapters eight and beyond, but this month’s SFSX feels a lot like a post-mortem on the first six issues of the series.

The standoff between the Dirty Mind and the agents of The Party has been pretty ugly. Things aren’t looking good for the revolution as the reformed Ms. Margaret Jones has committed murder in the name of The Party, and the Dirty Mind revolutionaries are looking for an escape. There’s a compromise that’s going to need to be made, and that compromise just might be some kind of sacrifice that just might save the revolution, but what is it going to cost to keep dreams of freedom alive?

Horn’s opening arc is pretty bleak. There isn’t much in this issue to give any glimmer of hope. The revolutionaries are on the run, having realized that there’s no hope of saving their friend. The dialogue is witty, but overall this is one hell of a grim ending to the first half-year in the dystopia. Horn provides just enough of a glimmer of hope to keep the end of the first arc from totally overwhelming with bleakness, but on the whole, it IS a pretty dark time for the rebellion. 

Hickman takes the uglier side of dystopia and makes it feel that much more ugly. Her skill in doing so has taken a subtle array of different forms over the past half-year. With the seventh issue, it’s the art of desperation that cuts a dramatic path for the heroes in the process of escape. As this issue is mostly falling action, there aren’t very many kinetically ugly moments of physical violence. It’s all mood and shadow in a cold drama that comes screeching to an end throughout the last few pages of the issue.

The large plot structure that Horn is working with looks to be leading in some exciting directions in future arcs of SFSX. The opening seven-issue arc seems to have been about establishing the world and the people in it. The single most prominent character in the series is the dystopia itself, which continues to lumber over everything throughout the seventh issue. As it is so very, very central to the plot, the total eradication of that dystopia would have hampered the series moving forward. Horn and Hickman have so much more to explore in this darkness, but the end of the seventh issue might have been more heartening if it had shown a little bit more hope for the heroes. 

Grade: B+