Fearscape #1 Advance Review
Vault Comics 2018
On Sale 09, 26, 2018
Written by Ryan O’Sullivan
Illustrated by Andrea Mutti
Coloured by Vladimir Popov
Lettered by AndWorld Design
The Fearscape is a world beyond our own, populated by the manifestations of our greatest fears. Once per generation, The Muse travels to Earth, discovers our greatest Storyteller, and takes them with her to the Fearscape to battle these fear-creatures on our behalf. All has been well for eons, until The Muse encounters Henry Henry—a plagiarist with delusions of literary grandeur. Mistaking him for our greatest Storyteller, she ushers him into the Fearscape. A fake man in a fake land…this is the story of the wrong person answering the call to adventure, and the doom that followed.
I have to be honest at first I was taken aback and thought what the hell am I reading? Honest reaction and the opening is such that it continues onward and you have no idea why the narration is A. talking to you and B. sounds so damn flowery and condescending while doing so. Fair warning this isn’t something you can just pick up and start reading it’s very thoughtfully involved and you have to keep your focus on this book while reading this. If you don’t think so well tell once it’s out and you’ve read it. As a matter of fact I had to sleep on this last night to get my thoughts in order.
I found the way Ryan has structured this to be fascinating to me. On every page we see this kind of exaggerated look at the writer and it’s almost to the point of obnoxious and while yes it does this amazing job at bringing Henry Henry to life it also make it easy to dislike him. The contradiction is something you’ll notice throughout the entire book, to like him as a character and despise him for who he is and I have to admit Ryan impresses the hell out of me here with how deep and how depth the story contains while still being a hot mess that is so tongue in cheek about writers. Also that it is so layered with wordage that might seem unnecessary but in the end using your own cerebral prowess you understand why it’s there.
I am a huge fan of Andrea’s and the work that he does. His ability to bring a world alive through the attention to detail by manipulating the varying weights in the linework is among the best there is today. Right from the opening okay second page where we see his work, coloured expertly by Vladimir by the way, we see the visual characteristics of Henry Henry and how easy it is to see how others see him. Even when the scene calls for a more oblique sensibility to it it’s easy to see how up to the task Andrea is and how easily he’s able to convey the different elements through different styles. His utilisation of page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows off just how amazing his eye for storytelling is.
This one took me by surprise as I certainly wasn’t expecting it be what it is. What that is I will leave you to decide because honestly I do believe that each person will take away something different from the experience. Yes it feels like there is a story within a story here and ya know what that’s fine because it makes things more interesting. Is there a moral to be learned amidst all this? Who knows maybe but be careful what you wish for and Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbour come to mind don’t they heh. Alright I am in to see just what kind of mess Henry Henry has gotten himself into and how in the how in the hell he’s going to survive it.
Vault Comics 2018
On Sale 09, 26, 2018
Written by Ryan O’Sullivan
Illustrated by Andrea Mutti
Coloured by Vladimir Popov
Lettered by AndWorld Design
The Fearscape is a world beyond our own, populated by the manifestations of our greatest fears. Once per generation, The Muse travels to Earth, discovers our greatest Storyteller, and takes them with her to the Fearscape to battle these fear-creatures on our behalf. All has been well for eons, until The Muse encounters Henry Henry—a plagiarist with delusions of literary grandeur. Mistaking him for our greatest Storyteller, she ushers him into the Fearscape. A fake man in a fake land…this is the story of the wrong person answering the call to adventure, and the doom that followed.
I have to be honest at first I was taken aback and thought what the hell am I reading? Honest reaction and the opening is such that it continues onward and you have no idea why the narration is A. talking to you and B. sounds so damn flowery and condescending while doing so. Fair warning this isn’t something you can just pick up and start reading it’s very thoughtfully involved and you have to keep your focus on this book while reading this. If you don’t think so well tell once it’s out and you’ve read it. As a matter of fact I had to sleep on this last night to get my thoughts in order.
I found the way Ryan has structured this to be fascinating to me. On every page we see this kind of exaggerated look at the writer and it’s almost to the point of obnoxious and while yes it does this amazing job at bringing Henry Henry to life it also make it easy to dislike him. The contradiction is something you’ll notice throughout the entire book, to like him as a character and despise him for who he is and I have to admit Ryan impresses the hell out of me here with how deep and how depth the story contains while still being a hot mess that is so tongue in cheek about writers. Also that it is so layered with wordage that might seem unnecessary but in the end using your own cerebral prowess you understand why it’s there.
I am a huge fan of Andrea’s and the work that he does. His ability to bring a world alive through the attention to detail by manipulating the varying weights in the linework is among the best there is today. Right from the opening okay second page where we see his work, coloured expertly by Vladimir by the way, we see the visual characteristics of Henry Henry and how easy it is to see how others see him. Even when the scene calls for a more oblique sensibility to it it’s easy to see how up to the task Andrea is and how easily he’s able to convey the different elements through different styles. His utilisation of page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows off just how amazing his eye for storytelling is.
This one took me by surprise as I certainly wasn’t expecting it be what it is. What that is I will leave you to decide because honestly I do believe that each person will take away something different from the experience. Yes it feels like there is a story within a story here and ya know what that’s fine because it makes things more interesting. Is there a moral to be learned amidst all this? Who knows maybe but be careful what you wish for and Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbour come to mind don’t they heh. Alright I am in to see just what kind of mess Henry Henry has gotten himself into and how in the how in the hell he’s going to survive it.
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