Canto II: The Hollow Men #2
IDW Publishing 2020
Written by David M. Booher
Illustrated by Drew Zucker
Coloured by Vittorio Astone
Lettered by Andworld Design
Book 2 of Canto continues!
Canto leads his friends on a journey to save his people and his first stop is his friend Aulaura, the mysterious warrior who helped him fight the Furies in the City of Dis and escape from the Shrouded Man. But what shall they do when they find Aulaura’s village full of hollow men?
This remains the best new character of the past decade, at least. This issue has one very special moment that defines exactly why I think this to be true and it comes from Aulaura herself. There are some things, experiences, feelings that are just hard to express for some and yet you know it’s there and you can do little except tell someone to read it so they’ll understand what you feel and think. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try because if you get enthusiastic about something and have passion for it that is as contagious as can be. That is this for me, this series is just incredibly endearing, more emotional than you realise and it gets under your skin and seems into the essence of who you are.
I love the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is expertly laid out. The way we see their journey unfold and the bits of humour amidst the seriousness of their quest strike all the right chords. The character development continues to impress and the more that we see this foursome interact with one another the more we get to see their individual personalities emerge further. The pacing we see is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists & turns along the way it is easy to see just how well everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow.
David knows this world inside and out and yet I still feel that it is Canto who is really telling the story here. Marv & George did that with The New Teen Titans and it’s not something that is easy to do and yet David manages to capture it epically. With the way this is structured and how we see the layering within the story we are getting a plethora of angles and aspects to the story you might have anticipated.
The interiors continue to blow me away with not only their creativity and imagination but with the sheer level of detail work that we see. The linework is exquisitely laid down and to see the various techniques and varying weights being utilised make me so incredibly happy. It is as if there’s no stone left unturned. This kind of approach is phenomenal to me and even if the backgrounds aren’t filled up we do see the sky or something that says hey we know and it’s not blank. This allows us to get some great depth perception, a sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scale to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a truly remarkable eye for storytelling. The colour work is brilliantly rendered. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a superb eye for how colour works. From the metal in their bodies to the blues in the sky and yellow, orange and reds that come with the thatch building roofs and more it practically sings at you.
If you look at the best books on the market today you’ll notice they all come from small publishing houses and BOOM! Seems to have more than most anyone else currently. So have you boarded the train to boomtown or are you still stuck in snoozeville? Yes cheesy but ya know what it still holds true.
IDW Publishing 2020
Written by David M. Booher
Illustrated by Drew Zucker
Coloured by Vittorio Astone
Lettered by Andworld Design
Book 2 of Canto continues!
Canto leads his friends on a journey to save his people and his first stop is his friend Aulaura, the mysterious warrior who helped him fight the Furies in the City of Dis and escape from the Shrouded Man. But what shall they do when they find Aulaura’s village full of hollow men?
This remains the best new character of the past decade, at least. This issue has one very special moment that defines exactly why I think this to be true and it comes from Aulaura herself. There are some things, experiences, feelings that are just hard to express for some and yet you know it’s there and you can do little except tell someone to read it so they’ll understand what you feel and think. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try because if you get enthusiastic about something and have passion for it that is as contagious as can be. That is this for me, this series is just incredibly endearing, more emotional than you realise and it gets under your skin and seems into the essence of who you are.
I love the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is expertly laid out. The way we see their journey unfold and the bits of humour amidst the seriousness of their quest strike all the right chords. The character development continues to impress and the more that we see this foursome interact with one another the more we get to see their individual personalities emerge further. The pacing we see is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists & turns along the way it is easy to see just how well everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow.
David knows this world inside and out and yet I still feel that it is Canto who is really telling the story here. Marv & George did that with The New Teen Titans and it’s not something that is easy to do and yet David manages to capture it epically. With the way this is structured and how we see the layering within the story we are getting a plethora of angles and aspects to the story you might have anticipated.
The interiors continue to blow me away with not only their creativity and imagination but with the sheer level of detail work that we see. The linework is exquisitely laid down and to see the various techniques and varying weights being utilised make me so incredibly happy. It is as if there’s no stone left unturned. This kind of approach is phenomenal to me and even if the backgrounds aren’t filled up we do see the sky or something that says hey we know and it’s not blank. This allows us to get some great depth perception, a sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scale to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a truly remarkable eye for storytelling. The colour work is brilliantly rendered. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a superb eye for how colour works. From the metal in their bodies to the blues in the sky and yellow, orange and reds that come with the thatch building roofs and more it practically sings at you.
If you look at the best books on the market today you’ll notice they all come from small publishing houses and BOOM! Seems to have more than most anyone else currently. So have you boarded the train to boomtown or are you still stuck in snoozeville? Yes cheesy but ya know what it still holds true.
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