Augie De Blieck Jr gives us an inside look at whats going on in the more obscure corners of the Comic Book world. First with a look at the series “Opposite Forces”. He then moves on to some of the various comics he’s read, and then takes a look at Manga.
It’s a trend now. Self-publishers doing their first comics work end up changing it all around in fairly short order. Jason Lethcoe’s ZOOM ACADEMY went from rough and animated art to something slick and colorful. Ryan Woodward’s THE INVINCIBLE ED went from cartoony to more realistic. Now, Tom Bancroft’s OPPOSITE FORCES goes from an inked line to a straight-on pencil line. After the first two pages, he stops inking the artwork (with additional Photoshop gray tones) and goes straight to final pencil work. It looks more like Mike Kunkel’s HEROBEAR AND THE KID now. I really liked Bancroft’s slick ink line with the well-spotted grey areas, and those will be missed. However, the raw pencils have all the same energy to them without losing any of the detail. At this point, the format shift isn’t dramatic for me. (ED and ZOOM, I believe, suffered for their changes.)
This third issue starts with everyone’s favorite odd couple, Marty and Alexis, waking up to the sound of Marty’s dog’s voice. The three were recently infused with Captain Dynamo’s powers, and are now trying to figure out what to do with them. Marty, the stereotypical comic book reading loner, has big plans including code names and costumes. Alexis just wants to go back to work and stop breaking everything. When a mugging interrupts their reverie, the two get to work and more craziness happens.
Head over to the Pipeline for the full story.
Published: Sep 2, 2003 05:30 pm