Destined:
Yahoo! I can love me some weird! I am all over Manifest Destiny 1 and 2 and eager for 3! I am so glad to see that I am not the only fan of the coolest niche genre in existence, "weird". I, too, have long been a fan of such "weird" books as Eerie and Creepy, Heavy Metal, Weird Adventure, Weird War and the like. Remember ole Grimjack and the more recent House of Secrets.
But now comes a mashup of my favorite genre and my favorite explorers! You guys have hit on one of the coolest ideas I've read in 47 years of comics fanaticism.
Dingess' story is both plausible and fantastic. Of course Jefferson would send unconnected men on a dangerous journey, and while Jensen is a coward, he certainly is no fool, though thoroughly, but believably, despicable. I like Clark and Lewis' interactions so far, both true to what I know of the two explorers and carefully played throughout the first two issues. Dingess', you must be having a blast.
And Mr.s Roberts and Gieni seem to be enjoying themselves as well. Roberts renders sufficient identifiable and authentic detail without cluttering a single panel. His characters are recognizable and expressive through costume and panel changes. Again, Jensen in particular stands out as a character in whose face I can see his thinking. The first frame of the rat-faced traitor already establishes his ilk. Three other images stick in my mind: the heron, the skull flower and the buffalotaur. Mr. Roberts, your attention to detail on the real heron and the totally imaginary flower are only second to the seamless construction of your buffalotaur. Well done. And Gieni's colors are fantastic. Never muddy, the balance of contrast and match makes the artwork even more readable. I was worried that with nothing but earth, sky and greenery, the palette would get bland, but I was wrong. Of course, a little bright bloody red violence doesn't hurt.
Even your sound effects work well, specific sounds with plausible spelling without resorting to what I have "heard" a million times before.
Good work, gents. I can't wait till next month.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This letter was sent way back in 2014, before i started entering them all in Blogspot. It was my first published modern letter. The response appears in issue four.
ReplyDeleteRoberts: I'm trying to convince Chris to develop General Sherman's march as seen through the lens of a Martian civil war...but I'll just have to be happy with MANIFEST right now.
Dingess: Again, I'm happy just to have those titles in our letters page. I loved Heavy Metal when I was a kid. It was way too adult for me, but [I] would stare at it anyway.
Roberts: Thanks again, Reverend. However, let me just say this: I know lots of perfectly lovely, upstanding rat-faced people. Let's not toss them all in with Jensen and ilk. Much loved [sic] to the ratfaces!