Top Cow Productions/Image Comics 2016
Written by Amit Chuahan
Illustrated by Eli Powell
Coloured by Andrew Elder
Lettered by Troy Peteri
I really like that Top Cow does the yearly Talent Hunt and this one shot features the winners of last years search Amit and Eli. It’s a great opportunity to not only showcase new up and coming talent but it’s also a great way to broaden the type of books they put out. So while this is really kind of like a sample of what they can do what took from this is these guys are able to but now that I’ve read this I want this to come back as something more.
This is an interesting story. Astronauts crash land in the ocean and already there’s tragedy and things only get stranger from there. As you go through the first few pages you begin to wonder if this is some sort of Planet of the Apes type thing as the cityscape is unfamiliar and yet oddly human. This isn’t someplace our astronaut had been before so immediately you get that sense of intrigue and wonder what’s going on.
The interior artwork instantly reminded me of what we see in The Massive only it does have it’s own style to it. This kind of almost grainy scratchy detail work is deceptively good. I’m liking how it goes from a brighter familiar setting to a darker unknown one for the main character as well. There’s a really great sense of storytelling going on through the artwork from it’s illustration to it’s colouring.
As our Astronaut begins to realize the world she’s landed on isn’t friendly she encounters a man who tries to help her but things go awry. Soon the two have time to spend together and spins a tale of his world and what’s happened to it. It isn’t pretty but it also isn’t so far off as to what we could see happening here, though with slight modifications. After all this parallel world or alternate dimension whichever it is has something extra we don’t see here. Still the science involved and the way their society changed so drastically has that all important touch of things we on our world can understand all too well.
I think that’s part of why I like this story so much. Science Fiction comes from an idea that can be totally real in world only taken to a level so extreme that it seems impossible. They’ve done that here incredibly well. While this is a one shot to showcase the talent winners it really is a story I’d love to see explored more fully. This is the kind of stuff Matt finds and does well himself and I think it’s a much underappreciated art.
Who knows maybe if this does well we’ll get to see more if not at least it’s a great look at the future stars of the industry.