Posted in: Comics | Tagged: indie Comics, indie comics spotlight, kickstarter, paul nic, resurrection men, rory donald
Indie Comics Spotlight Review: Resurrection Man #1- Parenthood and Spitting in the Face of Mortality
A man's son is hit by a bus and seemingly dies. The man goes unconscious at the scene and wakes up at a mysterious corporation, and his son is still alive. The corporation implies that they have something to do with that and use his son to blackmail the man into working for them. He begrudgingly accepts.
Resurrection Men #1 is a comic that mixes those oft-used premises of "how far would someone go for their family" and "how far should science go?" That's actually a very clever marriage. It gives the comic an emotional grounding and a wider science fiction scope with which to surround that emotional crux.
The pacing is very well-managed too. You have an introduction that quickly and economically establishes the relationship between the father, James Stone, and the son, Jude. James wants to be more connected to Jude, but, having just lost his mother, Jude is distant. The forward movement can be a little jumpy at times, but even that goes a long way towards displaying the disorientation experienced by James over the course of the story.
James is a pretty compelling character too; he is beleaguered, suddenly wildly out of his depth, but willing to charge straight into this crisis for his son.
It's also surprisingly brutal at times. Harsh things just happen out of nowhere, and you're faced with the consequences immediately. It doesn't beat around the bush in regard to its content.
The art is quite stylized and fitting for the narrative too. There is a lot of expression and heavy shadowing. It's somewhat reminiscent of Mike Mignola's artwork. Rory Donald provides some great artwork here, and his color art is top-notch too.
There's not much that Resurrection Men #1 gets wrong. The worst thing you can say about it is that its name is similar to Resurrection Man from DC. Even then, that's as far as those similarities go. Resurrection Men #1 is a great comic, and you should certainly check it out. Nic Paul and Rory Donald created something special here.
It finished its Kickstarter project not too long ago, and I am unsure when it will be available for purchase. As such, I will provide a link to its Kickstarter page for people who want to keep an eye on it.