Advent Comics 2018
Written by Tony Kittrell
Illustrated by Catia Fantini
Coloured by Whitney Cook
Lettered by Mindy Lopkin
As a reviewer I get asked a lot to review peoples books and I am always happy to look at them. I’ve done a few reviews of Advent’s books in the past and I have enjoyed them. I like when books have a strong point of view and don’t gravitate towards being accessible to only minor audience and for me this is a great example about anyone and everyone can read and enjoy this. It's also a great example of folks doing what they love so that what we see is why I love small/indie/self published books and urge you to check them out.
Tony does a nice job structuring the book here. While there are few moments the transitioning seems sudden (with no warning we’re outside with that team so a box saying meanwhile outside..), not so smooth and maybe jarring little but with more experience and more work that won’t become an issue. I like that we are starting in the present and we are seeing the story from Jhane’s perspective so we get a better sense of how she saw it unfold and how it affected her. The whole idea of a journal or a diary is a great one and not just from a writing standpoint or plot device and Tony used it extremely well here.
I’m also pretty impressed with the way that we see this father/daughter dynamic. Jhane is a teenager who lived with her mother and now lives with a father she barely knows. This is going to be hard and she’s making it even harder than it has to be but then again what Tony does here with the characterisation and dialogue is bring a teenage girl to life in a realistic and honest way. This is how we all acted at our teenage years, as if our parents couldn’t possibly understand our troubles and how life really works.
I connected with this story on so many levels thanks to the characterisation and the way all the different characters are represented. In this day and age it’s harder and harder to come up with new and distinct ways to give someone powers. That isn’t Tony’s fault but he handled this one nicely and how we see it happen even if no one quite understands it is a great thing to me. He manages to make rational and something that might not ever be understood but it’s happened and let’s hope she doesn’t end up being a lab rat to see how it worked.
I am intrigued by the interior artwork here. There are times I question if it’s drawn on paper or with a computer program. I do like the way that foreground focus is shown with the blurred effect as it extends back that’s very well achieved. I question a few body proportions and they very mannequin in stiffness I don’t really feel movement from anyone. Though the use of linework and it’s varying weights, backgrounds and page layouts are well done and show a nice eye for storytelling. It just needs more time to smooth things out and get used to these characters I think.
Saul Kingman sigh okay now I don’t know his fate here though there are two options obviously but I do like how this establishes him, his company and Tesla. While I am not sure what happened was necessary Jhane has already got a unique enough origin story without adding a cliché trope but that was Tony’s decision and we’ll see where he takes it. I am looking forward to more of this I think Advent Comics has a nice variety of heroes and characters to follow on a regular basis. You can feel the passion that they have for the work, is it perfect no of course not nothing is but it has potential and there’s this wide open spaces to be filled and explored, what’s more fun than that?
To learn more about them and their books not to mention where they are available for purchase head over to https://www.adventcomics.com/