IDW Publishing 2019
Written by John Lees
Illustrated by Ryan Lee
Coloured by Doug Garbark
Lettered by Shawn Lee
Everything in Mountainhead has been building to this chapter! On the road to Canada, a driver makes an ill-fated roadside stop. In Braeriach, the townsfolk are behaving strangely, animals are disappearing, and Theo Halbot seeks to share some good news with his family. And in the skies over Mount Rector, a storm is brewing. In this pivotal, must-read issue, secrets are revealed, blood is spilled... and the other shoe drops. Don't miss the comic everyone will be talking about!
John continues to impress me with each new issue that I read, of his world all around. He has such a keen mind and sees the potential and possibilities and seems to let them play out as the characters want them to. It's a damn nice thing to have in your bag of holding. To be able to tell a story and have it feel that you are just chronicling the characters lives and making their actions up well to me is mighty impressive indeed.
The opening here is certainly not what I was expecting it to be and that alone thrills me. It took a minute or two to realise the identity of the officer in question and then to see more of the lengths that he will go to is a reminder of all not just his love of his son but how incomplete he feels without him and that kind of love is powerful, dangerous and delightful to see here. The second opening we see that I rather enjoyed was when he brought the kids back home. Nolan seems kind of scary and yet I have that feeling his bark is much worse than h is bite. Still what this leads to in terms of confrontation between Abraham and his mother and what a freakin dozy that one is.
The story &plot development we see here through the sequence of events unfolding as well as how the reader learns information is superbly laid down. The character development we see is off the charts here. This woman who is supposed to be his mother oh I'd have slapped that bitch fifteen ways to Sunday if she spoke to me like that. I try to see this from her point of view but she's non-relenting in her views and refuses to entertain the idea that he was happy and raised by someone who loved him. She's not a stable person and no one will be able to prove me otherwise. The pacing here is incredible it is strong and it takes us through the pages and with all the twists and turns it brings out creating not just a fun, interesting ebb & flow to the book but also keeps the reader glued to their seat.
Ryan has a very unique and distinct style of illustration and at first I wasn't all that sure about it. The more we see it the more it grows on you. I think the faces are utterly charming and at times have a puppeteer's look about them and other times it's almost stop action animation that we only see in the old Christmas Cartoons. Either way what he's bringing to the table visually here is rather extraordinary in it's own right. The way he utilises backgrounds is beyond what I could've hoped for and with them in the composition we see in the panels show us this great depth perception, scale and brings us this sense of size and scope to the book. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a really nice strong eye for storytelling. The colour work we see is gorgeous as well. I am fan of how we see the light sources utilised to create the shading and shadows while his choice of colours and the hues and tones within them bring the shading, highlights and shadows to life beautifully.
The layering within the writing and how we see this come across in ways that foreshadow things to come is excellently laid down. The characters and their characterisation that we see is mindbogglingly good as we see them continue to prove the kind of folks they really are. If you aren't reading this then you've done a huge disservice to yourself because the next generation of creators have already arrived and John's leading the charge.