Black Crown/IDW Publishing 2018
Written by Tini Howard
Illustrated by Nick Robles
lettered by Aditya Bidikar
Death is like outer space—a seemingly unknowable, terrifying blackness that yields beautiful discoveries and truths—if only you’ve got the right kind of rocketship. Thalia Rosewood has had a lifelong obsession with death, keeping her from living her life to the fullest. Mercy Wolfe has a brain tumor the size of a billiard ball, and a need for a new recruit before her next journey begins. Inigo Hanover is a reluctant tether to the world beyond, seeking to continue a cycle that exploration would halt. Go toward the light. Then go beyond. EUTHANAUTS.
This is a weird one and I say that with all due respect. I think it has the beautiful quality to it that lulls you in and suddenly you are enveloped into a story that almost seems to meander through theses esoteric theories of death and dying. Tini manages to do something kind of extraordinary here with this story and in many ways it feels like a classic Vertigo story and that alone makes it worth it’s weight in gold. I love that I couldn’t take my eyes off the page and stop reading trying in vain to understand what was going on. It was that aspect that kept me going, trying to understand an it’s what will bring me back to the next issue as well.
The way this is structured is extremely well done. The opening is ritualistic and symbolic and yet the cast of characters have this completely non-gender feel about them. Kind of mixing a true Viking funeral with a Wiccan gathering in the woods type of deal. It is off the beaten path and yet easily recognisable for what it is and it’s that feeling that takes hold of you and carries you throughout the entire book.
After the opening we get to meet Thalia who not so ironically is on her mobile talking to her friend as she walks to join them at a restaurant. There is something brutally honest about the way Tini goes about telling this part of the story. I think whether we want to admit it or not we have a tendency to stare at people whom we find intriguing or disgusting and everywhere in-between. So to see this frail woman on an oxygen tank and that Thalia would focus on her isn’t unusual add in her profession and well that connection is stronger.
Nick does some of the most involved and mesmerising work of his career here. From the opening and the ritual to the people celebrating a life, complete with that ginger with the tattoo which looks more like a collar that we get a serene yet festive feeling from his work is amazing. The utilisation of the page layouts with how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows off his eye for storytelling. The way we see backgrounds utilised helps keep things rooted and expand the story in the most perfect ways. The manipulation of linework through it’s varying weights to create the intricacy and boldness in the attention to detail here is sensationally well conceived.
There are a few things that occur in this issue that set the stage for what is to come. They leave an impression upon the reader whether they realise that or not and it fuels the imagination alongside what we already see. The vastness of ones consciousness is as deep and unexplored as the reaches of space or the depths of the oceans. What are dreams if not an expression of our subconscious and how do we know what that is trying to tell us? We don’t know just as Thalia is unable to comprehend what is happening right now but we want to see her learn, to grow and join the journey she is taking.
With an extremely interesting premise and a most promising lead character this book epitomises why I think Black Crown is the new imprint where there are no rules and stories aren’t so much told as they are revealed.