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I've not long finished the first issue of the new Image series Gutsville and thought I'd start a thread to flag this upcoming !mage six parter.
The story starts off a hundred and seventy five years after a prison ship heading from Australie to Britain was swallowed by a gigantic sea-beast. The descendants of the original mariners cling to life in the belly of the beast and squabble, bicker, love, and die.
The first issue is all about creating atmosphere, selling the world, and introducing the characters. Simon Spurriers origins as a 2000 A.D. script droid are much in evidence. Decompression is, clearly, a dirty world for Si. There's plenty of charcter detail packed in and we get to know presumably the principal players within a very short space of time.
Frazer Irvings art is as distinctive and original as ever atmospheric and grim, practically oozing with flesh and mucal drippings. Irving is never going to be a mainstream populist, his art is too odd for that, but he always turns in a top notch job, with some of the most expressive faces and startling images in the business.
In part one we're introduced to the cities new ratcatcher and follow him on his first day, a meeting with an old flame, and see his discovery of a potential way out.
Throughout I was reminded of Edginton and D'israeli's Leviathon which told of an ocean going liner trapped in limbo and explorre the lives of those trapped onboard. The difference here is that that the time between the boats disappearance and the tale is far longer, and the nature of the incident also defines the tale. There's a sense that the humans have become unwilling parasites living inside another organism and that's explored to the grusome end. There are similarities between the two, and indeed between the creative teams, but they're as similar in reality as X-Men and Doom Patrol.
I genuinely enjoyed Gutsville, a lot more than I expected. The back up pages add interest, and I'll be buying part two as soon as it hits the stand. If this looks like a rave or press blurb I'm sorry but I'm genuinely enthused. Buy, read, report back. |
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