Aftershock Comics2018
Created & Written by Paul Jenkins
Illustrated by Wesley St. Claire
Lettered by Marshall Dillon
A young man obsessed with crop circles and cryptography finds his boring life turned upside-down when he discovers that all of his conspiracy theories are true, sending him on the ultimate treasure hunt for an ancient secret spanning thousands of years. What is the connection between a lost mountaineer, an indecipherable manuscript, and the lost library of Alexandria? How is this connected to a one-eyed, flatulent Welsh Corgi and endless plates of corned beef sandwiches?
I like this it has a decidedly fresh and unique spin on the genre that I wasn’t expecting to see and Paul who is a masterful storyteller already comes into this as it’s creator adding that level of excitement and love for the project and that is clearly evident within these pages, which is also infectious from a readers standpoint. The feel for this book that I get is like crossing X-Files with Kyle XY which in and of itself is pretty damn genius.
The opening perfect. Aside from doing what it’s supposed to do, catch our attention and get the readers curiosity piqued, Paul manages to make this feel like a program on the Travel Chanel, or Discovery or any one of them in that vein. It is not only cute but it keeps raising the subject of portals, wormholes and time travel and how events tie into one another that there is no logical way within man’s current mode of thinking, they can be connected and yet the evidence is empirical. Oh it takes the mind of a teenager, one who is forming his adult brain but still has that naivete and openness to it that is required for outside the box thinking which is how the best discoveries are made.
Well I have to say this, I was ready to proclaim this one of the most fun, unique and interesting books on stands today and that I'd never leave it. I really was and that’s because it isn’t Paul throwing conspiracy theories out there but he’s using logic, evidence and facts to back up what Jakey boy is thinking. How he’s trying to put things together and how we get to see his way of approaching things. Yes he’s not a great student and his obsession might be seen by some as immature but let’s face it he has to have a fairly good intelligence, IQ, to put events in order of occurrence and to calculate the time differences where they overlap and shouldn’t. Jakey, the way thinks, acts and just is is not something we see everyday.
I like the interiors here Wesley manages to create some beautiful atmosphere on the page and it doesn’t matter what it is we’re looking it all has the same attention to detail to it. The house, where it is and how we see the scope is sensational and the utilisation of page layouts and how we see angles and perspective in the panels shows off a stellar eye for storytelling. Backgrounds are utilised pretty well and serve to help us expand the moments and give it a little flavour. The linework here is well utilised and it brings out Wesley’s style nicely. Jakey seems to be of a different cultural background than good old uncle Paul. I do like the creativity and imagination we see here and the interiors and the way the house is all of it has a great eye to it.
This is brilliantly written and illustrated and manages to capture our attention, imagination and unleashes something inside that years to be free.