Clover Press 2021
Created & Written by Charles Holland
Illustrated by Antonio Fuso
Coloured by Stefano Simeone
Lettered by Robbie Robins
When a comet lands on Earth, it brings a child who will become Earth's most powerful hero. Sounds familiar?
Well, it also brings an ultra-virus that grants powers to a select genetically disposed few. In a world where those with superpowers invoke fear and awe, some become celebrities, others become scapegoats – and some exploit these new abilities for their own agenda. Who will defend the powered few when the many seek to cage and/or control them?
Cassidy Crawford is the most prominent defense attorney who leads a law firm that specializes in protecting this new minority population from overzealous laws, police and prosecutors.
I’ve only recently been made aware of Clover Press and I have to say they have some incredibly good strong titles on stands. The Great Gatsby is well great and this, this exceeds any and all expectations I might have had, of course Antonio Fuso on interiors had me interested right away. The way that this book reads is absolutely phenomenal and while I wasn’t really sure what to expect I love the fact that I find myself completely enamoured by the story here.
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 impeccably rendered. The character development that we see through the narration, dialogue, character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter establishes their baseline personalities so they can easily grow and evolve as the story moves forward. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is perfectly achieved.
I really appreciate how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story emerge and grow. How we see these layers, or avenues, being opened up and explored really is something special. From her job to her personal life and so much more that we see there’s this addition of depth, dimension and complexity to the story that seamlessly creates these amazing opportunities. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is perfectly rendered.
The interiors here abso-bloody-lutely mindbogglingly brilliant to see. The linework is exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create such a high level of quality detail work within these pages is astonishing. We see a great deal of backgrounds being utilised throughout the book is great to see, we could still use more mind you, as they expand and enhance the moments. They also work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope beautifully. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show such a masterful eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show such a great understanding of how colour works and how to maximise its effects.
I love comics, hello we all do, and it is precisely because of books like this that come from such unexpected places or ones that are lesser known. I’m here to change that because I scour for books from small press publishing houses and this certainly qualifies. It is also one of the strongest issues that I’ve had the pleasure to read in a while. There is some extremely high quality storytelling happening here with such intelligent writing and witty characterisation wrapped up in these bloody brilliant interiors that create a book you’ll not be able to put down.