Virus/Heavy Metal Comics 2021
Written by Mark McCann
Illustrated by Phil Buckenham
Coloured by Agnese Pozza
Lettered by David Withers
Winter is seduced by the boy-sprite, Petros - off to the Never, Never. A place where children never grow up and adults are the enemy. What would such a place look like? Where resources are scarce. Time passes, but age is obsolete. War with adults, starved and insane from constant battle, is the norm. What would age-less boys free of civility and role-models be willing to do to survive. To live Forever. A young girl will face her greatest test; an island full of immortal cannibals with a dark secret that sustains its existence, in the most unnatural and awful of ways.
The more we learn and see of this story the easier it is to understand just how Petros was able to snap the way he did. Perhaps he was never a good kid to begin with and the situation of being in this tweener body as he aged well into adulthood finally got the better of him and he lost what tenuous grip on reality he held I don’t know. All I do know is that with the influx of people to this small island and its inability to sustain them all drew everyone over past the brink of madness.
I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter keeps expanding on their personalities. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing one nasty surprise after another can Winter live long enough to instill hope of getting off this cursed island?
I am enjoying how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. How the layers open up new avenues to be explored while exploring those that have already opened adds some great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. Meeting the Frenchman last time around and where that leads to this issue for example. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is extremely well achieved.
The interiors here have been getting better and better with each issue. Yes I would like to see more backgrounds because when we do they enhance and expand the moments. The composition within the panels brings out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The linework is clean, crisp and sharp and the effects such as rain and drooping leaves are extremely well rendered. I would like to see more definition in the zombie style faces denoting how long they’ve been on the Island as I’m guessing those with more have been on the longest. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkable eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a great understanding of how colour works.
While never having been this dark originally the idea does lend itself to horror exceptionally well. Physically never aging but mentally growing old would be a burden many would like to be freed of. The Crocodile and Hook can be treated in any number of ways and here the croc is part of the creators story. Interpretations are wonderful things for it takes what is familiar and makes it new, fresh and interesting again like we see here. The writing is strong, the characterisation is smartly done and the interiors are delightfully rendered.