Boom Studios 2015
Written by Justin Jordan
Illustrated by Jorge Coelho
Coloured by Tamra Bonvillain
Lettered by Ed Dukeshire
I’m a huge fan of odd and this is as odd as it gets. John is crazy but only because he can’t sleep which has affected his mind. The result of an experiment and then released into the world which i’m sure whomever did this is studying him. He’s endlessly fascinating and completely irritating and you just can’t help but marvel at him trying to function. Justin has created something here that blends the seriousness behind the condition with thinking man’s humour instead of just slapstick to really engage the audience.
I like the way Jorge and Tamra work together here. The attention to detail and in the colouring is amazingly well done. For instance the exposed muscle in shoulder from the severed arm and the depth of the words on the man’s chest just right there with his slightly overweight hairy body it all just has that moment where it works. When it looks this good you know as a reader you are going to have fun reading the story.
I’m not going to say i’m getting used to John’s speech pattern or his inability to keep one strain of thought going because there’s no way you can. It’s like having a kid with ADD, ADHD and a few others i’m not fully familiar with. He can’t sit still or concentrate on anything for any amount of time so watching him is always fascinating. Poor Berry needs sleep and peace and quiet none of which he’ll get spending time with John.
When we see John filming Berry it’s great to see what he does finally. All the bats flying around then the dead bodies everywhere, though they all seem to be the same person. The red hue to the pages is nice as it reflects what we see in John’s eyes. This weird almost kaleidoscope effect of the panels heighten the sense of weird and what sleep deprived disorder comes from it.
The dialogue and characterization between John and Barry is fantastic as is what we see from both of them and I think the honesty of the bad thing happening not making you a bad person and seeing each of their bad things is good for us.
We met the beefy man with the penchant for killing already and he’s chasing down John. Well this issue the two meet finally though not the way you think. The way Justin takes us through that is fantastic. We know the boys are walking into a trap but not the one anticipated and the way it unfolds and how John takes the turnaround well it’s funny to me because it’s what he wanted to do without the results.
It’s getting harder and harder to come up with original quirky characters that we’ve not seen before, or is it?, but Justin manages it here. This is fresh, fun, original and highly entertaining on so many levels.