Cave Pictures Publishing 2019
Written by Jason Brubaker & Rick Rekedal
illustrated by Jason Brubaker
Tripp's 13th birthday is a bust: snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in his favourite video game, targeted by the school bully, reprimanded by the principal, and unable to celebrate with friends or family. But everything changes when he receives a strange gift from his long-missing father and is then visited by the three Shapes who guard all creation. They reveal that Tripp's incredible video game skills may be the key to saving the whole universe.
I like Cave Pictures, Appalachian Apocalypse was incredibly fun and No Ones is one of the best books that we see on stands (I hope that we continue to see future arcs because that's just too good not to). If you haven't become aware of them it's high time you did because they care about the books they do, they don't try to do too much and everything I have read has really been a great read. Shapes continues this and after reading this issue I am totally hooked. I really like the premise here and the boys do some great work in showcasing how an online persona is so much different than the real life version. This of course needs to be paid attention to a whole lot more than it is these days, who knows what kind of crazy lurks behind names and pictures.
The opening here is utterly phenomenal! What I think struck me the most is the fact that these days with the advances in VR technology being what they are it feels like we are in the middle of a game. Seeing the characters, the setting and what they trying to do all has that feel of them being in the middle of a game. I think it's fantastic I really do. Then to see the real life version in contrast as the story really gets underway is delightful.
The way that this is being told is really nice to see. The story & plot development here with how we see the sequence of events and how the reader learns information are extremely well done. The character development is superb and it isn't always easy to write kids especially when they are in puberty and first entering their teens. So the personalities we see are basic tropes that we already start to see expand and grow from the circumstances they find themselves in. The pacing here is incredible! We see how the twists and turns come into play and even a revelation or two add into the entirety to create this ebb & flow to the book that feels like a natural every day kind of flow.
I am really impressed with the interiors here. The linework is so strong, clean and crisp and how the varying weights are being utilised to bring out the attention to detail is superb. I really like the real world look over the video game landscape, which is odd but that's okay. The way that we see the composition inside the panels and how backgrounds are utilised we see depth perception, scale, they enhance the moments they are seen and bring a nice 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 strong eye for storytelling. My only complaint if you wanna call it that is I wish we didn't see so many blank backgrounds. The colour work is gorgeous! I mean gorgeous. How light sources are being utilised and how we see the brightness of the blues in the devices as well as the various hues and tones within any given colour to create the shading and shadows is remarkably well done.
The overall creativity and imagination we see in these pages is stupendous. The story is far-fetched but in the realm of science fiction it is genre's fan dream come true. It is a modern variation to something classic, remember The Last Starfighter?, and it is done with this respect of the kids ages, the type of story it is and the audience for which it's intended. This engages the reader and gets them involved and invested into what we see on the pages in ways that spark our own imaginations beautifully.