Source Point Press 2017
Written by Ben Goldsmith
Illustrated by Keyla K. Valerio
Lettered by Justin Birch
The Seed Of Change
Issue one of the séance room opens the door of the mansion to career politician Senator Donahue. He crashes his car and his hopes at the Magic Manor and, in the Seance Room, he will have to account for his two-faced ways. In politics words are for votes, in the Seance Room, we wrap them around your throat and give you the rope.
Oh I found myself really enjoying this. Nowadays the idea of comeuppance is not that we don't really see all that often any longer. As we open up with a man driving his car smiling and bragging and being one of those all around arseholes. He is an easy man to identify from his words and his actions and it doesn't take very long for the reader to figure out this. The story itself while it may not be what the reader is currently going through it is one that is easy to relate to. The way this is being told is sensational and there is a great flow filled with the expected, unexpected and the consequences of ones actions strewn throughout the pages. This is magnificent story is being told brilliantly and it conjures up images of the theatre, cinema and those other areas that appear so much larger than life.
I am a huge fan of he 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 beautifully. How things progress and the circumstances and situations that arrive in the lead characters way, okay Senator Donahue, really does reveal more and more about him and the story than you'll imagine it could. This also combines itself and weaves into the character development that we see here. The story and the character development seems to be almost near one and the same at times and the Ben is able to really relay this to the reader is mind-blowing to me and it certainly leaves me chuffed. The pacing that we see here is utterly marvellous and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists ad turns along the way it works with everything else to highlight the books ebb & flow as well as how it's structured.
The interiors here are so amazingly gorgeous. I mean it's painted, or computer generated and if the latter it makes this all the more impressive. If it's hand painted I would love the opportunity to shake Keyla's hand because this level of skill, talent, imagination and creativity is beyond what I would have ever hoped for. The attention to detail here is bloody brilliant in how they make the imagery come to life. From the faces, facial expressions and body language and how the are able to further the characterisation in ways that words alone cannot do is immeasurable. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show this masterful eye for storytelling. The backgrounds we see being utilised is mindbogglingly good and how it helps to bring us depth perception, a sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scale to the story itself. The colour work, by god the colour work it is truly something magical to see. The way that we see the hues and tones within the colours utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work leave me breathless. The sheer number of hues and tones that lie in such colours are on full display and that Keyla really understands on a fundamental level how they work makes me an instant fan and a fan for life of someone who has this kind of talent at their disposal.
Reading this story engages the mind of the reader fuelling the imagination and creativity in ways that hopefully involve you in the story that's happening. We become a part of the story here and we come to bear witness the trials and tribulations that he's brought upon himself and others because of his desire for wealth and power at any cost. This is mindbogglingly brilliant work all around and it's why I urge you to read Source Point Press time and time again.