Tpub Comics 2018
Created & Written by Michael Gordon
Illustrated by Henrique Pereira
Coloured by Jan Wijngaard
Lettered by Jim Campbell & Colin Bell
The story focuses on Deacon Price, an emotionally broken underwater archaeologist who charters an expedition, under false pretences, to a downed Soviet submarine that's been missing for decades. What he and his crew find there will not only put their lives at risk, but also the lives of everyone they've ever known! The story gets progressively darker, more intense and horrifying as it goes along, leading to a gory and harrowing conclusion.
I am thoroughly enjoying this series. Now Michael has added his own personal drama into this as last issue showed us the couple that would be working together who broke up after the death of their daughter. Being the best of the best in their fields and needing her on this mission was going to be difficult for the pair but when you need the best you have to put personal feelings and history aside. At first I was weary of this angle and felt it might be a little too familiar and adds an unnecessary part of the story. Then of course he goes proves me wrong with this issue and I almost feel as if I have egg on my face but what we see here is perfectly done that I see exactly why he has added everything he has here.
The way that this story is being told and how this is structured is incredible to see. The story & plot development and the character development have this underlying strength to them that I wasn't quite expecting to see. What that means is that while reading the book your mind wanders through the readers' memory and I engaged in such a way that you don't realise that nothing you will come up with be what Michael has in store. The way that he is able to fuse the story & plot with the character development as the pacing moves everything forward is really something extraordinary.
Then there is the characterisation that we are seeing here. I love how we see the attention to each individual is being presented. The way they are fleshed out and how they know each other so the dialogue and banter that we see feels normal and natural even with that underlying tension. So in effect it feels as if we are joining them in their established lives which gives the reader this feeling of familiarity.
The interior artwork here is sensational as well. I like the lilnework that we are seeing and how the varying weights are utilised to create some really great attention to detail. That this has a very classic comic book feel and yet the detailing and the way the linework and highlighting are utilised makes this feel elevated above regular. While there could be more work done to showcase they are underwater we can let that go since most of this is seen on the inside of the vessels. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a rather good, solid eye for storytelling. Backgrounds are utilised nicely and by fleshing out the ships we get that feeling of being enclosed which is essential in this type of story. They do enhance the moments and bring a sense of size and scope to the story. The colour work is all kinds of fabulous. From the muted tones of the metals in the ships to the highlights on the masks and even how we see the shading on the faces is sensational work. Personally I really like seeing the various hues and tones within the colours to showcase the shading and shadows.
This creative team manages to beautifully create the right amount of tension and anxiety in the reader so that when we finally see the creepy bits it's a real shook moment. Building up to that wasn't easy to do but it's done with aplomb. The creativity and imagination we see from the writing and the artwork here really help the readers' own imagination to be ignited and become a part of the story. So it has been way too long since the Ocean has been the scene for a modern day horror story and it's about damn time it became one again! People this is the epitome of modern storytelling it just happens to be a tale of terror under the ocean's depths.