Comics
Review: “Umbral” #6
Stabbing, jumping out of windows, and magic. Also, there’s nasty looking demons that kill you and take your shape and memories. “Umbral” #6 opened my eyes to another world where swords, guns, thieves, scientists, wizards and scary monsters run around together. Is it worth sticking around? Is there more to discover? Yes, and I think you’ll love it too.
WRITTEN BY: Antony Jonhston
ART BY: Christopher Mitten
PUBLISHER: Image Comics
PRICE: $2.99
RELEASE: 30 April 2014
I’ve been surprised more and more lately how fantasy comic books are popping up and breathing new life into the genre. Thanks to hit TV shows like Game of Thrones, people’s appetite for swords and sorcery is peaking right now. Writer Antony Jonhston has built up a thought-provoking world where crystals can be powerful and guns are the high tech achievement. I think there’s some dimension-hopping implied in this issue too.
The rag-tag group readers are following includes a thief, a wizard, a “zealot”, and a scientist/monk. It’s such a great mix that I must applaud Johnston for making it all seems so refreshing. The artwork by Christopher Mitten the Illuminator, Jordan Boyd the Painter and Thomas Mauer the Flourisher (great job titles) really give this world a weighted substance in each panel. There is plenty of grime and darkness to explore as well as beautiful castles and dream-like realities.
Although this is the final chapter of Book One, it’s not at all anticlimactic. It’s full of hooks for the future. Creators Johnston and Mitten have really just scratched the surface of this tale. This world seems to have all kinds of themes/genres running around together. I’m fascinated to see how they will play collectively in Book Two starting in July 2014.
Review by – Your Friendly Neighborhood Brady
IDW Dark and Paramount recently joined forces to launch limited comic book tales set in the worlds of Smile and A Quiet Place, and we’ve learned today that they’ll continue hanging around in those franchise universes with two brand new limited series tales.
Entertainment Weekly has exclusively revealed this afternoon that IDW Dark’s Any Given Smile debuts in September, while A Quiet Place: Rising Tides arrives in November.
First up, from writer Stephanie Williams and artist Pablo Collar, Any Given Smile puts a football-themed twist on Parker Finn’s successful Smile movie franchise.
The five-part limited series is “set in January 1995, during the American Arena League football championship game in St. Augustine, Florida. The rising superstar of the Sharks, backup quarterback Dupree, is feeling the pressure from his teammates, the fans, and also the city’s gambling underworld, to whom he owes a considerable debt. Meanwhile, a sports journalist investigates a string of suicides that may be connected to the big game. At the very least, they are connected to a sinister entity that preys on the minds of its victims.”
From writer Declan Shalvey and artist Luke Sparrow, A Quiet Place: Rising Tides will also be a five-issue limited story. The comic book tale “brings the creatures to the Florida Keys, where a father-daughter duo attempt to survive on water in a houseboat.”
EW further details, “This tense family reunion coincides with the arrival of the vicious creatures that hunt through sound. Grace and her dad find safety on the open ocean, but she’ll have to make landfall sooner or later; the father’s oxygen tank and their supplies are running low, while a hurricane swiftly approaches.”
Learn more about both comic books over on Entertainment Weekly.
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