Atari/Dynamite Entertainment 2017
Written by Chad Bowers & Chris Sims
Illustrated by Ghostwriter X
Colour Flats by Karl FAn
Lettered by Josh Krach
Peter Case was a boy on a quest. The quest to win the prizes from Atari's SwordQuest challenge! He was counting down the days to the release of the final game, AirWorld, only to be shattered when the news surfaced that it would never be released.
Now Peter is an adult...and things aren't going well. The bad news is he has to move back in with his mother. The good news is she still has all of his old Atari stuff. With nothing else to look forward to, his obsession with SwordQuest is reignited, in a more...ummm, interesting way...
I’ll be honest I wasn’t sure what to expect from this since I hadn’t seen or read anything before diving in. First impression was that this was going to be something completely different and that it wasn’t that well kudos gentlemen kudos. I kind of wanted this to be some sort of modern horror story and who knows it may eventually come close to that, though I sincerely doubt that, but until then I will also admit to being highly curious as to what’s next.
So essentially the boys have done an excellent job with the story here. They manage to capture the reader’s interest right off the bat and keep it throughout the entire book. There are a couple of miscues or red herrings that you want to be more than they are and perhaps they are we don’t know yet and it increases the whole enjoyment of what’s going on in these pages. I mean there are a number of times I kept going, okay go here, now go there and alright so is this gonna mean… and that alone is priceless when it comes to what you want your reader’s to experience.
Now I had to look up Swordquest to see if this actually follows suit and not surprising it certainly does. I like that as much as I like the liberty of using that basis for a story and keeping things most assuredly in the present. So overall i’m extremely impressed with what we have here from every angle, the research, premise and characterisation are perfectly done.
So as far as I can tell Ghostwriter X is new to comics, at least American comics. He or she has a pretty familiar style that works well here as a cross between old atari and cartoon animation. The use of page layouts through their angles, perspective and utilisation of backgrounds are impressive to see. I really like this it’s got just enough to give kind of the illusion of intense detail mixed with some more abstract vision.
This whole book took me by complete surprise and I love when that happens. That moment when you find something you weren’t looking for but then find that it’s inconceivable that you live without it now. Extremely well written and with equally impressive interiors this is one you are going to want to make sure goes home with you!