Aftershock Comics 2018
Created & Written by Ted Anderson
Created & Illustrated by Jen Hickman
Lettered by Marshall Dillon
Being captured and chained isn't a problem for the child of the Moth and the Whisper, but now that their face has been seen, nowhere in the city is safe. Unless Niki's parents left them one last surprise…
Ted is currently crafting a great story here as we see Niki’s life unfold before us. So the mystery of his parents disappearance is his driving motivation yes but that search isn’t the real story. Niki has something or rather someone in his sights and he’ll do almost anything to achieve the goal of destroying him. So while we know a bit of his upbringing we and that his parents have given him every opportunity to live a life unfettered from public view we haven’t seen him in public, interacting with people or much of his social skills. So I have to say that I like what we’re seeing here as Ted is taking a character whom he gets to build literally from the ground up.
The way the book is structured is sensational. Everything that we see has this great flow to it as well as demonstrating the skills that Niki uses to move the story forward. For instance I would love to see how he learned to escape from traps and such but seeing it action is extremely exciting. There is more than a little bit of mystery here surrounding Niki and his past and I think that adds to the whole mystique and intrigue surrounding him.
This budding relationship or friendship or mutual enemies deal that’s going on here between Niki and Walter is something that I definitely want to see more of. Whether they admit it or not the way Ted writes them they both need each other not to mention the characterisation here for both of them is outstanding. This issue also introduces us to another new character and slowly but surely the cast of supporting characters here is being fleshed out nicely. While the whole idea that Niki is a loner isn’t entirely accurate he’s just never been around those whom he could count on before, or work with so this is one of those huge learning curves kind of thing.
Jen is a fabulous artist and illustrator and her own style shines through here beautifully. Granted there is a nice tone, mood and feel to it, I just wish it were a tad more detailed and I am sorry I can’t help it that’s what I was brought up seeing. While it is also true that the more I see this style the more I can appreciate it and Jen really does have a lovely style that flows extremely well here. Plus her colours here are stellar and I get such a great vibe and feeling seeing the work. The utilisation of page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows off her amazing eye for storytelling.
One of the things about this that I am greatly appreciating is the fact that it takes some of the old cloak and dagger style with the newer James Bond gadgets and sprinkled in is the whole Anime/Manga influence so it has this entirely fantastic feel to it that grabs the attention and doesn’t let go. There is some absolute superb storytelling going on in these pages from the concept, plot & story development through the visual storytelling to accompany it once again Aftershock really knows how to put out some top quality reading material.