A thoroughly unnerving and highly atmospheric triumph.
In Andry and Daniel’s graphic novel, a primordial terror from the deep ocean attacks the survivors of a drowned planet desperate for human contact.
Aside from being shut up in a submarine for nearly a decade after the polar ice caps completely melted, the crewmembers of the Absolution are doing pretty well for themselves. Morale is good, there’s birthday cake, and the showers are co-ed and uninhibited. All of this belies the sense of dread that the authors and illustrator Sanchez quickly establish with in-your-face splash pages foretelling the havoc and utter mayhem that lurk at the heart of their undersea horror show. These cramped and oppressively claustrophobic shots are juxtaposed against a wide-angle view of the Absolution silently cruising through a green expanse of algae, the world the crew once knew above possibly erased out of existence. Crackerjack Science Officer Liana Pearson, capable Capt. Martin Wilder, and the rest of the crew are eager but also wary about investigating a sudden distress call from a British warship called the Vehemence reporting the discovery of “clean soil” above their heads. (“If there are other survivors out there, if we aren’t the only ones, isn’t that worth exploring?” asks the chief engineer.) Gruesome dead bodies bathed in an awful green hue float mutely across several wordless panels before an insert highlights the fingernails of one of the corpses scraping across the hull of the smaller vessel the Absolution has dispatched to investigate—the ensuing “Screee” sound effect couldn’t be more impactful. The Absolution’s crew manages to return safely, but they do not return alone: An undersea organism determined to consume them all has come with them. What follows, as the creators deftly parallel the confined with the expansive, the now with the later, and the orderly with chaotic, is a kind of Danse Macabre with elements of grotesque body horror. Interpersonal dynamics between Pearson and the captain, and between the captain and his problematic brother, effectively underscore the dramatic tension as the unwelcome visitor ramps ups its unstoppable campaign of carnage and conquest.
A thoroughly unnerving and highly atmospheric triumph.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781960578662
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Lush visuals bring this thoughtfully constructed tale to life.
Wondrous visitors encounter a desperate pocket of humanity.
Lori, a white orphaned teen who’s finally been adopted after bouncing around various foster homes, awakens to discover that nearly everyone has disappeared. The rapture? Maybe. She runs into her classmate Annette, who has brown skin and curly black hair, and they partner up to scavenge for food. The pair tries to evade several threats, such as the large Wolves and a gang called The Dogs. Supernatural Giants arrive, seemingly from space, speaking an impenetrable language of “musical chiming and weird bass-rhythms.” Lori and Annette then meet Beatrice, an older white woman who shares important observations about the Giants and Wolves. The tone of the story then subtly shifts from post-apocalyptic desperation to one that’s somewhat playful. After a certain point, a visual element that appears early on takes on clear significance and meaning in the context of the story at large, offering a subversively humorous twist for readers to consider and a creative element that deviates from other alien invasion narratives. Hans’ artwork and paneling fill each scene with wonders. An interaction with a giant sees the red, violet, and pink figure standing against a bright, otherworldly white-and-blue backdrop with dark contours. Elsewhere, Lori and Annette pause at night as they behold ominous shadows, their foggy breath forming clouds, and they hear a “KRRNCH” sound. The quick-moving plot wraps everything up neatly.
Lush visuals bring this thoughtfully constructed tale to life. (character designs) (Graphic science fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781534387072
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Image Comics
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
A not-very-illuminating updating of Chaucer’s Tales.
Continuing his apparent mission to refract the whole of English culture and history through his personal lens, Ackroyd (Thames: The Biography, 2008, etc.) offers an all-prose rendering of Chaucer’s mixed-media masterpiece.
While Burton Raffel’s modern English version of The Canterbury Tales (2008) was unabridged, Ackroyd omits both “The Tale of Melibee” and “The Parson’s Tale” on the undoubtedly correct assumption that these “standard narratives of pious exposition” hold little interest for contemporary readers. Dialing down the piety, the author dials up the raunch, freely tossing about the F-bomb and Anglo-Saxon words for various body parts that Chaucer prudently described in Latin. Since “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” and “The Miller’s Tale,” for example, are both decidedly earthy in Middle English, the interpolated obscenities seem unnecessary as well as jarringly anachronistic. And it’s anyone’s guess why Ackroyd feels obliged redundantly to include the original titles (“Here bigynneth the Squieres Tales,” etc.) directly underneath the new ones (“The Squires Tale,” etc.); these one-line blasts of antique spelling and diction remind us what we’re missing without adding anything in the way of comprehension. The author’s other peculiar choice is to occasionally interject first-person comments by the narrator where none exist in the original, such as, “He asked me about myself then—where I had come from, where I had been—but I quickly turned the conversation to another course.” There seems to be no reason for these arbitrary elaborations, which muffle the impact of those rare times in the original when Chaucer directly addresses the reader. Such quibbles would perhaps be unfair if Ackroyd were retelling some obscure gem of Old English, but they loom larger with Chaucer because there are many modern versions of The Canterbury Tales. Raffel’s rendering captured a lot more of the poetry, while doing as good a job as Ackroyd with the vigorous prose.
A not-very-illuminating updating of Chaucer’s Tales.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-670-02122-2
Page Count: 436
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
PERSPECTIVES
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