Aftershock Comics 2021
Written by Tim Seeley
Illustrated by Freddie William II
Coloured by Jeremy Colwell
Lettered by Marshall Dillon
Our heroes must undertake an epic quest across a broken and dangerous land...AMERICA! When the mad monk, Epoch Craev unleashes monsters on small towns, Warlock and the War Party face more than just impossible creatures as they’re assaulted by suspicion, anger and the dying gasps of the American dream.
This is an unusual, interesting, engaging and all around fun series! I like the idea that this group of adventurers have been sent to Earth to stop Epoch Craev the culture shock is palpable and it is great to see that so clearly. Tim is the master of stories that blend humour and horror and now we’re including the fantasy adventurer aspect to that as well. There is so much more to this story than what we see on the surface and that, that complexity underneath is what drives this to whole new heights. Plus we have this group dynamic that’s also been changed and Tim just keeps things in a constant state of Flux with the core firmly in place. It is quite a bit solid writing that you don’t really “see” but it anchors the entire book and Tim’s a master at it.
I love 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 is utterly phenomenal! In the first issue we had a glimpse of the baseline of who they but thanks to the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter continue to help them grow, change and evolve before our eyes. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story draws you in beautifully.
I am a huge fan of the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue grow, evolve and emerge. This is what ties things together as they swirl around the main story arc and it’s where we see the drama come to life. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as move the story forward is masterfully achieved.
Freddie’s work on the interiors is just bloody gorgeous! The linework is phenomenal and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to create this level and quality of detail in the work is astounding. I would like to see more backgrounds being utilised so we feel like they in a building or surrounded by them and give us that sense of size and scope even better. The composition within the panels are utilised to bring us depth perception and that sense of scale is achieved beautifully. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show why Freddie has such a masters eye for storytelling. The colour work is absolutely divine. How we see The Chamber with nothing but colour and how the purples change how we see everything around it is perfectly done. The way we see various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is stellar work.
Each of these characters is coping with being here in different ways and each one gets to have a spotlight moment throughout the series and what we see here kind of endears us to the character in question. This is superb work throughout and the writing is intelligent, savvy and it engages the reader exceptionally well while the interiors here are a perfect compliment to the writing as they really bring this to life spectacularly well.