Alterna Comics 2019
By Bernie Gonzalez
Lettered by Wes Locher
Unbeknownst to detective Zeke King, he has taken a step well beyond the supernatural. He leaves a city of ghosts populated by a haunting past and a painful present. And now he must faces an uncharted future filled with unfamiliar fantasy. His journey will take him into a chasm of conjuring... through an abyss of alchemy... and into a maelstrom of magic!
This is one of those series that I just can't get enough of. While I wish it was put out by a better company we don't get always get to choose such things. I have come to really like Zeke and even with his self-depreciating attitude at times he's one of the more interesting fellows in comics. With everything he has seen and been through and he's still resistant to a lot of the ideas that he's witnessed. It is part of what makes him endearing if I am honest.
The way that this is being told with the story & plot development and how we see the sequence of events as well as how information is revealed is extremely well done. The way that Bernie structures this is really rather fun and interesting to see because of the way the story is told is how the journey he wants us to take is made. The character development keeps getting stronger and stronger as we see the encounters the characters have. Each encounter inevitably changing them one bit at a time and that we see this like we would in ourselves is nicely done. When you add the pacing to the mix and we see the twists and turns coming at us we see just what kind of cat and mouse game is really being played here. The ebb & flow to this book is superb as it takes us through these pages.
I was wondering how things were going to play out here with the story that includes previous arcs. After all the first arc with Conrad is still going forward as his father fights for control of the body. So it is nice to see how we keep these threads moving throughout the pages. What this adds to whole story is amazing to me and as the layers keep showing and flowing into one another is brilliantly done.
The fact that Bernie does the writing and artwork here is something to be admired. This has the most wonderful all-ages sensibility to it that I really think works incredibly well here. The linework is wonderful and how it's utilised to bring out all this attention to detail just makes what we see that much more remarkable. I mean Zeke is pretty much hot daddy type here with the beard and the hair with the silver and grey. I love the faces and the facial expressions we see and how they contribute to the characterisation. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a strong eye for storytelling. With this being newsprint the colour work is old school and feels like it's based off the four-colour style. So the colours are bright and the colour blocking that we see to create the shading and shadows is just perfectly done.
There is such duality in this issue with it's storytelling and it really something we don't see play out every day. I think what Bernie is able to do with his creative vision as he manages to bring this to life as he does impresses me more and more every issue of this I see. Between the story itself, the way this is all being written and the interior artwork this is one of those series you will never forget and want to keep reading. Hopefully so long as Zeke lives we'll be getting more and more of his adventures.