Jonathan Hickman
& Nick Dragotta “East of West, Vol. 1:
The Promise” (Image, 2013)
East of West is
one of the creator-owned comics currently getting the big buzz. What is it?
And it is worthy of the hype?
The story itself is an old one. A man wanders trying to find his wife. Is she alive?
Can he find her? What happens
when they are reunited?
If the devil is indeed in the details that has never been truer
than in this case. The man just happens
to be Death. You know, like from the
Four Horsemen. (And the other Horsemen
are chasing Death. Apparently there’s
some sort of sibling falling out. And
they (the other Horsemen) are now children.)
All of this strangeness is taking place in a fractured
America that is split into numerous factions.
Some seem to be Western themed, while other areas are inexplicably
SFnal. Underlying the whole schism is an
apocalyptic religion, which has surprised its believers by actually being true.
It’s perhaps the world building that is my biggest issue
with East of West. Yes, it is wildly inventive. The attempt, at least, is to seamlessly
integrate numerous genres into a single experience. But without explanation, the world feels
haphazard, and not organic. It’s like
when kids play & keep introducing new elements to the game because they’re
cool, and not because it actually works.
How is it that at times we’re looking at a world that is closer to the
19th century than to ours, and at times we’re looking at a world far
into our future? While there are
numerous unexplained plot points, I’m willing to let that go, especially so
early in a serialized narrative. But the
world needs to feel organic, or at least to have that discrepancy itself
explained.
Despite the problems that I have with East of West, it is such a display of imagination and artistic
craft that it is impossible for me not to be impressed. This first volume shows so much vision that I
am naturally intrigued at what could follow.
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