
Aftershock Comics 2018
Created & Written by Lonnie Nadler & Zac Thompson
Created & Illustrated by Kyle Charles
Coloured by Dee Cunniffe
Lettered by Ryan Ferrier
Lynn and William Blake confront the anxiety-ridden mad judge of hell, Franz Kafka. Lynn descends further down the fiery depths into the circle of gluttony, where Cerberus awaits with a hunger of his own. Plus, a guest appearance by the world's most beloved author of suspense and mystery!
Half the time I am reading this and I feel completely and utterly lost and yet for some odd reason I find that immeasurably charming. The characterisation of Lynn throughout this story has been so sublime and to see her in Hell and not giving a damn to whom she is speaking makes it that much more fun. She is one feisty woman and she isn’t going to back down to anyone and until she gets her family and finds a way to get them out of there well Hell Hath No Fury…..
The way this is structured is spectacular to me and I find myself swept up in the ebb & flow of lost souls. No seriously I find myself looking through the crowd trying to find familiar faces or those that represent Lynn’s family it’s like Where’s Waldo only a thousand times worse. Yet oddly addicting and not at all satisfying but that doesn’t stop you from doing it. There are times that while you may not realise it but you are experiencing something pretty unique here.
Also while the upstairs supposedly has St. Peter who’s in charge of accepting them down below and if it’s Lucifer’s son well he must really hate the bastard. However I will wholeheartedly admit that his presence in these pages is as welcome as the breeze off the ocean on a hot summer’s day. It really is fresh and has this sense of fun and whimsy to it that I wouldn’t have expected to see and it really adds a certain something. There are many different folks that we meet throughout this book that will have that effect and I look forward to seeing them all.
All of this also ties nicely into the characterisation that we see as well because without this great characterisation we wouldn’t be as entertained as we are. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if it’s a character or just their characterisation that we like or if it’s one and the same. The idea of a character is one thing how we perceive them another and without their personality they are just a bore thankfully that’s not happening here in the slightest.
I love the interior artwork here as Kyle really manages to capture the whole air about it that reminds of the whole Sandman stuff with the Dreaming and all of them. It has that kind of ethereal aspect the way we see the linework which is extraordinary. The creativity and imagination that we see here is spectacular and then add the attention to detail in the varying weights of the linework and it really has this superb effect on the reader. The utilisation of page layouts and then how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows a really good eye for storytelling here. Also the colouring cannot be discounted as it adds new dimensions to the flavour of what we see.
There is such an unexpectedness to this story and everything that we see in these pages. It has fun and a warped sense of whimsy like Alice gone wrong, even more wrong than usual that keeps the readers attention and imagination working in overdrive. This is why we love the unexpected and why we talk about it so others will know it exists.