ONI Press 2017
Written by Paul Tobin
Illustrated by Arjuna Susini
Coloured by Gonzalo Duarte
Lettered by Saida Temofonte
Do you know Jutte Shelly? Maybe under her other name, Jutte Frankenstein. She used to be a Detroit police officer, but now she’s getting back in the family business….by resurrecting her murdered teammates. Of course, she had to make a few deals in the process. Bringing people back from the dead ain’t easy. Or Cheap.
I have to say that not only was I impressed with the whole premise here but Paul has gone a couple steps past impressed with what I’m seeing. Okay we’ve seen the whole Frankenstein legend play out in numerous ways from descendants to his monster living into the future but we’ve never seen something quite like this. Kudos on the originality of the story and keeping it true to it’s core material. Plus it doesn’t go directly into the horror realm more a mad scientist kind of thing which makes it fascinating to say the least.
Well the opening this issue is two-fold, one tells the tale of what’s happened in the and one is the present. You can tell by the colouring and I like that kind of sepia toned flashback use as it more than aptly denotes the past. Then it all kind of comes into the present and stays there. I have to say it feels Paul has upped his game here, he’s always been a good solid writer and I’ve been a fan for a while now but this, this isn’t what I’m used to seeing. There’s an elevation to the work or maybe it’s just that he’s more inspired by this I’m not sure but either way you can feel the weight of the story and that’s amazing.
So we quickly go from a grizzly crime scene to one that has more, perspective, meaning to how things move forward. It’s also the introduction of Harrison she works for Biz but I gotta say I think she’s rather enamoured with Jutte and wouldn’t mind switching over to work for her. After all it isn’t anyone who can do what Jutte does. I will say this though she researched the team so we get an “official” observer look at members of the team which makes them seem more real than what we saw when they were gunned down. Well the low-down on how the team ended up with man with a lions head and the one as Gemini well you’ll have read this to see.
Arjuna has a very solid eye for storytelling and there’s a quality about this work that fits the subject matter. Whether that’s the sometimes shaky linework mixed with the sleek tight stuff I can’t say for sure but you see it. I will also say c’mon man it’s 2017 while Gio’s body was naked on the table you have to hide the junk I mean I kind of want to know what the Lion Man’s packing. Still his use of page layouts with their angles and perspective really show his impressive eye for storytelling. Plus he isn’t afraid to use backgrounds and they really do so much roe to expand the story for us.
So with Jutte talking to Harrison we learn how she brought the members of her team back who were too damaged to revive without help. I kind of like it it’s not Banana Splits nor is it the Monster Squad but it definitely falls somewhere in between. I adore their introductions and what we see of them and Paul’s characterisation here is well supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! I mean I am not sure I’m going to be able to get enough of these characters moving forward. I am fascinated by them, who they are and what they do or can do.
While all this stems from Jutte’s grandmother’s research and the guys manage to really infuse the whole mad scientist vibe into this there’s another factor at play here and that’s the modernisation of the results. That we can go back and forth to the lab and see what’s on the slab and then go to walking down the city street without a care in the world it has a separate but same feel to it that just keeps your eye glued to the page.
This amazing stuff from some extraordinary talent and if you aren’t reading then what the hell’s wrong with you?