Published by - Aftershock Comics
Written by - Garth Ennis
Art by - Goran Sudzuka
Colors by - Ive Svorcina
Letters by - Rob Steen
Release Date: May 16, 2018
A comic that takes the modern day reality of the horror of mass shooting and the thoughtless volatility of social media and turn it into something else. 'Garth Ennis' does great work here creating an atmosphere of the cold reality of modern life, then injecting interesting techniques of storytelling, forcing the readers to slowly divulge the details and throws in an ending that will have you pulling at your hairs for the next issue.
The story focuses on two FBI agents, Shaw and McGregor, who tries to find out their two missing colleagues, who suddenly went missing investigating a warehouse. But this is far from any routine case as the readers start slowly to dive into a dreadful tale.
This is a comic that needs more than one read to really appreciate for a reader as new elements will surely be appreciable after re-reading. We start the experience with a beautifully rendered mall mass shooting seen which then turns into the heartless social media banter, and then we are introduced to the main players while once again getting a bit amazed by the casual response of the characters regarding the incident. As we progress through the story the sense of dread and hopelessness somehow keeps increasing. Then the missing FBI agents suddenly hit us and the unusual nature of the behavior of the local police escalates it even more. And the author leaves us with a cliff-hanger which quite literally plunges us into darkness until the next issue.
The structure used highlights the importance of telling the story in different issues and this is a series that will give you much more enjoyment in the aforementioned way rather than waiting for a collected edition, as you will have more time to think about what you have just experienced.
The art, while at first glance might seem a bit simplistic, yet for me 'Goran Sudzuka' did an excellent job here. His artful use of facial expression to paint the emotional aspect of horror and the use of extreme closeups to drive in the point of unease and hopelessness was very thoughtful. The colorist also used colors to substitute noise regarding gunshots further adding to the atmosphere, and the change up between white and black at the end sequence was another nice touch for effect.
This first issue, with its interesting plot and top-notch execution provided a lot to think about for me as a reader, while I wait for the upcoming issues.
A solid 4.5 out of 5 stars from me.
No comments:
Post a Comment