House of Mystery issue #17 by Vertigo comics (subsidiary of DC), full color, non-glossed, $2.99 per issue.
As to be expected, I initially picked this up because the cover art peaked my interest. It is non-iconic in style, impressionistic, and in favor of a muted color palate. The subject is a close up of a man lying on a stage bleeding to death, or already dead, his blood forming a heart icon in front of him. I've always had a soft spot for the morose and dramatic.
The issue contains four different stories interrupting each other. They explore concepts of parallel existences and an awareness of traversing them. All of the stories touch on love in various forms, though there's not so much romance as there is treachery or danger. It is set in fantasy environments, and highly surreal. Even though I've picked it up in the middle of a plot, it wasn't too hard to follow. I will be looking for the preceding issues.
As for form and style, each substory sports a varied illustration style from the others, and a drastically different color range in harmony with the mood of each. The character styling veers away from realism, forms and use of value are fairly simple; there is, however, an occasional thick use of texture in some parts that favors observance of the story over connecting. The panels are for the most part rectangular, but will sometimes run off page to enhance effect. The gutter is used mostly for moment-to-moment and action-to-action transitions, very uniform in spacing, and occasionally breached by panels for effect. There isn't too much visual abstraction, though it is occasionally present for high drama; emotions are largely maintained by plot and character.
If you enjoy contemporary gothic romance, this is certainly worth while.
Ref -----
1. Vertigo Comics
2. House of Mystery issue #17 - Sturges, Dell'edera, Davison, Marzan
3. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art - Scott McCloud
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment