Sunday, January 27, 2013

Blogathon 40: Spaceman (Part 2)

When Spaceman was announced, it was so surprising. Azzarello and Risso doing a... scifi comic...? The duo best known for 100 Bullets along with a few Batman comics and they're doing scifi? It was hard to fully grasp. Now, it seems so natural. They did their sort of story in a scifi setting. A world that Risso brings to life with stunning background and scenery setting. While I'm more likely to pay attention to the writing, because that's what I'm most comfortable with -- and far more likely to write about, because I'm far more comfortable with it in this arena -- it's hard to ignore the enormous role Eduardo Risso plays in Spaceman being as good as it is.

He makes the spacemen look different from one another. And not in big, obvious way. He maintains a sense of 'they all look alike to me' that would come with something as different and weird as the spacemen are. They have subtle differences like body language and haircut. Their faces are quite similar, which is fitting. Their hunched over bodies are strange, too. I remember reading when I was a kid that astronauts had to be six feet or under (maybe even less) -- yet these spacemen seem taller. Interesting choice.

That first shot of the docks is stunning. Perfect lines and colours.

Adam is right: this future isn't really much different from the world we know or have known for a while. There's the rich, the poor, and there's corruption One of the most chilling moments of the series is at the end when we see the cops now working security for the Ark. Money wins. Money always wins. That makes me wonder if we left the fantasy too soon. If Spender wouldn't actually fall victim to his brothers, because money wins.

I never would have guessed how much I like seeing Risso draw a spacesuit.

Of course, the dialogue Azzarello writes is so fun to read and figure out. It's a natural progression of what English is now, with some dropped letters and mispronounciations that I wouldn't be surprised were already occurring. But, it's not the language spoken in the Dries. That's something Azzarello is very mindful of. What we see is 'poor English' as it were. It doesn't even seem like it's out of place.

Trisha Mulvihill's colours... the reds and oranges... the paleness of Mars... spectacular.

Like Adam said, this is a comic. Nothing but a comic. Damn right.

In 30 minutes... I don't actually know entirely.

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