Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, great pacific, image

Tuesday Review: Great Pacific #1 by Joe Harris and Marin Morazzo

Published Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:30:39 -0600

Alex Wilson writes for Bleeding Cool;

When most of us think about the comic book industry, environmental crusaders are not usually the title that comes to mind but for the new comic Great Pacific we have an environmental story. With the resent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico destroying much wild life Joe Harris, the creator of Great Pacific, seems to have taken notice.

Great Pacific, written by Joe Harris and featuring the art of Marin Morazzo, is one of the new books coming out of Image this month. This creator owned project follows the adventures of billionaire boy wonder Chas who is the heir to an oil company. This boy has noble aspirations of helping the environment but for the least noble reason of all, money. Chas sees profitability in cleaning up the world's garbage.

The comic has an environmentally conscious message but accomplishes the lofty task of not shoving it down the reader's throat. For that, I applaud Harris. The story moves at an enjoyable pace with a little mystery and intrigue. Comic book dialog can be tricky as emotion and information must fit in a very small area. Writers don't have much space to move the story along while making dialog fit characters. Harris, for the most part, accomplishes this task. Harris presents interesting dialog that makes the reader think, showing off the interesting idea of making a profit off cleaning up the environment.

The story establishes many characters quickly and my only hope is that many of these characters do not fall by the way side and they expand with the rest of the story. The first half of the comic establishes Chas as a profit driven playboy environmentalist. After we have our characters the story starts to move. The last half of the story really moves the story quickly but it doesn't feel rushed. Harris also does a great job of combining unrealized technology with technology that really exists. I don't ever get the feeling of "sci-fi." Chas is a visionary in this series. Harris blends established real world technology with what Chas sees as the future of environmental clean up.

The transitions fit well. I feel a good amount of time is spent on each scene and Harris doesn't linger in the scenes. A good bulk of the story takes place in the last few pages and it starts to set up the rest of the series. Harris has said he has mapped out the first year of the series, with finishing at least the 6^th issue's script.

I definite recommend picking up the first issue of this intriguing series. Morazzo's art is fantastic and the environmental story isn't something that is normally done. To my surprise, it works really well. I would have never guessed that an eco focused comic book could be so compelling.

Great Pacific #1 is published tomorrow from Image Comics.

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