
Aftershock Comics 2020
Written by B. Clay Moore
Illustrated by Stephen Molnar
Lettered by Thomas Mauer
For the first time since childhood, Amara Bishop has taken a life. Now she and her daughter Alea find themselves on the run with an aging former assassin named Moses Graves. As the trio works to figure out who is stalking them and why, Amara and Moses reflect on their pasts as killers, and begin to wonder if their unsuspecting loved ones might be in danger as well.
I am really enjoying the way that this is being told. There is something about this that while familiar is also completely new, fresh and surprising and there is no one who does it better than Clay. I do like that when we read this there is so much to uncover and be excited by in both good and some not so good ways. Let’s face it a mother never wants to shoot someone in front of her daughter and then there’s Moses and the delivery of his news, other than he’s there to save their lives of course. So yeah there are a lot of moving parts happening here and the way they all tie together in various ways is extremely fun to see.
The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is exceptionally well laid down. The fact that we see how well this book is structured and how this affects the way we see the events unfold is masterfully done. The character development we see is amazing and I really like the way that we see the dialogue, banter or just back and forth between them and while it is telling it doesn’t really reveal as much as we’d like it to. That’s okay though it just adds another reason to keep coming back for more. The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story along with the twists & turns along the way it’s easy to see how everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow.
There is something about this that works a whole better than it probably should. Yes it is violent but unfortunately that’s nothing new these days, even with a young girl involved. Yet Clay manages to infuse so much charm into the characters that you feel things alongside them as well as empathise with them.
The interiors here are so gorgeous. Just the way that the work is able to transfer the idea of kinetic energy as the guns fire and people run is simply stunning. The linework is fabulous and how the varying weights are being utilised to create the detail work is stupendous. That the way the panels are filled some with and some without backgrounds really is what is best for that moment. This is how I see the work that Stephen is doing. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a stupendous eye for storytelling. The colour work as well is beautifully rendered. The way that we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is utterly phenomenal.
Aftershock continues to be a driving force in today’s market and they opened the door for a myriad of other publishing houses. With this kind of storytelling where the writing is strong, engaging and gripping alongside this level and quality of the interiors it’s ridiculously good.