Wednesday, December 10, 2014

What Just Happened?

Joe Keatinge and Leila del Duca “Shutter volume 1: Wanderlost” (Image, 2014)


Kate Kristopher is the latest in a line of adventurers.  It’s important to say it here, right up front, that I don’t mean adventurers like we have in the real world.  No small boat crossing large body of water, or walking up ridiculously tall mountains.  I mean full on nutso children’s book adventuring.  Trips to the moon, escapes from monsters, the whole deal.  Nutso.

Anyway, as the story opens, Kate seems like she’s given up on adventuring.  Only of course, just like in the Godfather, she gets pulled back into it.  Suddenly there are attacks on her life, she’s on the run, and oh yeah, here’s a brother she never knew about.

This first volume only gives you enough for a taste.  I honestly don’t know where this story is going, or how it’s going to end up. While I have seen quite a few comparisons to Saga, I think that the better comparison may be to the Unwritten, Mike Carey’s opus about the boy from children’s literature.  

Leila del Duca’s art is well suited for a story like this that is all over the map in terms of tone and emotional beats.  The art needs to be silly and childlike one moment, and dark and adult the next.  Del Duca manages to balance expression to the needs of the story.

I feel like I’m in for the ride, at least for a while.  It’s messy and a bit confusing, but that somehow seems appropriate for this story.

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