Monster Planet #3
Zenescope Entertainment 2019
Written by Joe Brusha
Illustrated by Sergio Ariño & Julius Abrera
Coloured by Maxflan Araujo & Fran Gamboa & J.C. Ruiz
Lettered by Taylor Esposito of Ghost Glyph Studios
Blair Spencer and her team have formed an uneasy truce with the monsters led by the vampire lord Xavier Drake, and just when it looks like they may escape Chicago and complete their mission to find a cure for the virus, they find a new enemy standing in their way. Spencer is starting to realize that neither the reptilian creatures they face or the monsters of legend they fear are the real threat...and that the thing she should fear the most is her own species.
At this point I feel as if this could be one heck of a franchise. There are aspects of this that could be explored and it almost feels as if it could like the Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead in some manners. I like that grandiose feel of the series so far. The opening here is really very nicely done and while they are fixing the transportation it gives Blair a chance to think back which shows us our first good glimpse at the fall of New York City. It is also this part that makes me want to see more of how all this happened to begin with.
I am a tad impressed with Joe's writing thus far, usually by now I start to see the cracks in his ability but I am more than pleasantly surprised by what I am seeing here. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is laid down really well. While there are the usual mistrust and animosity between the groups that is something that of course will remain. Though in all honesty vampires need humans so why wouldn't they be in favour of a cure? The character development that we see is nicely done as we get to see more and more revealed about these characters. There also are those hints that there is something deeper than what we are seeing on the surface. The pacing is really solid and as it takes through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way things definitely take the odd turn or two. All of this works together to create a really interesting ebb & flow to the book.
Overall I really am enjoying the interiors here though there are some glaring discrepancies in some of the body proportions. When we see the vampire Eva her breasts that are exposed on the inside do not match the globes under the bustier and it looks bad. I am not a fan of having so many artists working on a single issue it doesn't match up from one portion to the next. Now that that is out of the way the utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show some solid eyes for storytelling. That we see backgrounds utilised extremely well, that hall of dead monsters for example, really do create this fantastic depth perception, scale and overall sense of size and scope. The colour work is really something nice to see though and that has a more uniform appearance throughout and to see how the various hues and tones within the colours create the shading, highlights and shadow work is something special.
This world, this concept and the various factions that now inhabit this world is really something special to see. The world that Joe came up with here is something amazing and it has this complexity and layering to it that begs to be explored further. As this doesn't fit into regular continuity within the Zenescope Universe it does build a new offshoot of one and the potential that I see here is unlimited!
Zenescope Entertainment 2019
Written by Joe Brusha
Illustrated by Sergio Ariño & Julius Abrera
Coloured by Maxflan Araujo & Fran Gamboa & J.C. Ruiz
Lettered by Taylor Esposito of Ghost Glyph Studios
Blair Spencer and her team have formed an uneasy truce with the monsters led by the vampire lord Xavier Drake, and just when it looks like they may escape Chicago and complete their mission to find a cure for the virus, they find a new enemy standing in their way. Spencer is starting to realize that neither the reptilian creatures they face or the monsters of legend they fear are the real threat...and that the thing she should fear the most is her own species.
At this point I feel as if this could be one heck of a franchise. There are aspects of this that could be explored and it almost feels as if it could like the Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead in some manners. I like that grandiose feel of the series so far. The opening here is really very nicely done and while they are fixing the transportation it gives Blair a chance to think back which shows us our first good glimpse at the fall of New York City. It is also this part that makes me want to see more of how all this happened to begin with.
I am a tad impressed with Joe's writing thus far, usually by now I start to see the cracks in his ability but I am more than pleasantly surprised by what I am seeing here. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is laid down really well. While there are the usual mistrust and animosity between the groups that is something that of course will remain. Though in all honesty vampires need humans so why wouldn't they be in favour of a cure? The character development that we see is nicely done as we get to see more and more revealed about these characters. There also are those hints that there is something deeper than what we are seeing on the surface. The pacing is really solid and as it takes through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way things definitely take the odd turn or two. All of this works together to create a really interesting ebb & flow to the book.
Overall I really am enjoying the interiors here though there are some glaring discrepancies in some of the body proportions. When we see the vampire Eva her breasts that are exposed on the inside do not match the globes under the bustier and it looks bad. I am not a fan of having so many artists working on a single issue it doesn't match up from one portion to the next. Now that that is out of the way the utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show some solid eyes for storytelling. That we see backgrounds utilised extremely well, that hall of dead monsters for example, really do create this fantastic depth perception, scale and overall sense of size and scope. The colour work is really something nice to see though and that has a more uniform appearance throughout and to see how the various hues and tones within the colours create the shading, highlights and shadow work is something special.
This world, this concept and the various factions that now inhabit this world is really something special to see. The world that Joe came up with here is something amazing and it has this complexity and layering to it that begs to be explored further. As this doesn't fit into regular continuity within the Zenescope Universe it does build a new offshoot of one and the potential that I see here is unlimited!
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