IDW Publishing 2016
Written by W. Maxwell Prince
Illustrated by Martin Morazzo
Coloured by Mat Lopes
Lettered by Good Old Neon
"There are a million ways of seeing…" Trapped Inside the Mona Lisa with Manny and Arthur, Margot learns the impossible rules of The Electric Sublime. Meanwhile, a mass suicide raises questions about the connection between art, the men in white, and the winking ideogram.
This reminds me why almost all the great artists were crazy. What they could do with a canvas with whatever medium those chose to put on it they were remarkably talented and yet it seemed to drive them to various shades of mad. It’s like once you peek behind the veil there’s no turning back and for Margot we’re seeing that first hand. Having gone inside the Electric Sublime and coming back her world has irrevocably changed.
What W. Maxwell is bringing us is this extremely interesting look behind the curtain and it’s got that trippy feeling to it that the normal mind would have trouble processing. There’s more to the world than we see and sometimes how we see it can be changed by a single incident. While this issue brings us no closer to the Warhol men are doing what they are doing it does an incredible job expanding the mind so that we begin to see the world differently. What he’s doing here is extraordinary in being able to bring the layman, the reader, into this story and being able to showcase the way things can be seen.
Martin and Mat get to do some astonishing work to coincide with the story. From the use of colours to the way Martin uses page layouts with their angles and perspective there’s great work going on here. The flow of the story is wonderfully done and the uniqueness of Martin’s style is oddly mesmerising. It’s really a great fit for this this story that it’s so expressive and the detail and backgrounds stand out the way they do.
There’s plenty of seeing Margot both in the real world and her time in the Electric Sublime and how both have affected her. How and why things are happening I have not a clue but I will say this I am incredibly intrigued by what’s going on. How the art world is responsible for all this death and grisly murder I want to see unfold alongside Margot. I think seeing things from her perspective and discovering alongside her makes this a much more interesting prospect.
This wild, crazy and more than a little out there and it’s delightfully done with some great storytelling all around.