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Well, having now read 3 threads about 3 issues, I'm not sure I have a great deal to say that hasn't already been thrashed out.
The comments on this "Seaguy #1" thread about the artwork often seem over-encouraging, almost patronising though I'm sure that was never intended -- it's like because Cameron posts here and is (as I understand it) quite recent to the big-time, he gets praise for drawing a cool hat. I felt the art on #1 was effective but not stunning, with a few weirdly empty or stilted frames (eg. "It's our duty to protect the public") and some occasional dodgy aspects (eg. very boxy architecture and slightly disproportionate Seaguy on "There was the greatest hero of all..." panel). But I think a lot of this is just down to taste. I felt more enthusiastic about Williams' very different artwork for Seven Soldiers #0, for instance, whereas many people might prefer the cleaner lines of this comic.
Overall though, I felt the art here really lent itself ideally to the uneasily childlike, safely flat atmosphere -- and it also adapts very well into the darker moments, whether those are just nightmarish flashes ("Seaguy, I just saw somethin'") or the extended hallucinatory shipwreck death-scenes of chapters #2 and #3. I also agree that as the story developed, so did the artwork, leading to some inspired set-pieces and design in the final episode.
I was WRONG to assume this would be a light-hearted, cartoonish adventure a la "Really and Truly" -- as I commented when I decided, way back, not to buy #1 on the basis of the 4-page preview. I haven't lost out, of course, as I now own the TPM, but Cameron asked me to give it another try and not judge it on an introductory glimpse, and that was absolutely fair. It is a haunting, sad, queasy comic that offers a lot of clever gags but also leaves you unsettled at the end.
I do have one point of comparison that I haven't seen offered on the other threads -- it reminded me, very often of Dan Dare. Morrison has of course dealt with the character before, but a great deal of the time it felt like that type of eager adventuring, with good old-fashioned fisticuffs, retaining a sense of honour and nobility whatever space monsters you run into. I don't think I'm totally off-course by suggesting that Seaguy and Chubby look a little like Dare and Digby; which is why this comic, overall, had that feel of Zenith III, with classic British archetypes being flung into death camps and holocausts.
Not happy with the plotting of #2, which I couldn't fathom -- that melted chocolate business just doesn't seem to make sense, and like others I felt there was a scene or a page missing somewhere -- and the whole thing is clearly very odd in its meandering sub-stories, its weirdly recurring elements, its undecipherable alien tongues, its shifts in tone...
but then, nightmares are like that. |
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