Saturday, June 22, 2013

Engima Review #1 or Days of future now




Previously…


I love reviewing indie comics, especially ones by other black creators so I jumped at the chance to review, Kimberly Moseberry's Enigma. A murder mystery set in distance bleak future, a concept that immediately brought Blade Runner to mind.




Situation


We open up in the 35th century with Detective Brook Guilds who catches us up to speed on a bombed out and depleted Earth. Humans have destroyed everything left the planet, destroyed the other planets they found and then came back to the their home planet. Brook narrates a great yarn woven by his grandfather about how the air became poisoned and how the earth littered with rubble. We also learn that those who have the money and influence live in elevated cities where crime is almost non-existent so when three headless people are found in a posh penthouse, you can imagine there’s gonna be some problems.



 
Story

We open up in the 35th century with Detective Brook Guilds who catches us up to speed on a bombed out and depleted Earth. Humans have destroyed everything left the planet, destroyed the other planets they found and then came back to the their home planet. Brook narrates a great yarn woven by his grandfather about how the air became poisoned and how the earth littered with rubble. We also learn that those who have the money and influence live in elevated cities where crime is almost non-existent so when three headless people are found in a posh penthouse, you can imagine there’s gonna be some problems.




Pictures


I give Ms. Moseberry credit for writing and drawing this piece herself. The art s not amazing but the character designs while sometimes inconsistent look nice enough. The backgrounds look like they are products of Ms Paint or a similar program, this hurts the look of the book. The colors work well with the pencils and inks to the credit of colorist, Jonathan Price whose skin tones and pallets help bring the book to life.



The Real

I love the concept of this book, that man is nothing more than a technologically advanced animal. Lines like “I asked my grandfather what about the poor people who could live up in the cities and he replied what about them.” Does a great job of telling us what the climate is like, but the book fails in showing us this. My advice would be to rework the script for issue 1 and hire an artist so the writer can focus on constructing a more cohesive story. This is being a first attempt I hope Ms. Moseberry does some retooling and reboot the story. I expect big things from such a high concept story and I will be keeping my eye out.

Rating 3/5

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