is pretty slick, both in terms of the writing and the lovely, lovely art. Someone at Marvel has had the bright idea of publishing ‘the good stuff’ in hardback, on high quality paper with a very rich, deep colour process and a eggshell (does that adjective apply to paper?) sheen on each page. The pencils are realistic and detailed without being cluttered (unlike the stylisation of Next Wave or LoEG, or the crazy overflowing backgrounds of Transmet) and the colouring continuously takes advantage of the printing system, with fully saturated highlights nestling among deeply shaded background. This has been achieved without the crazy Photoshop-gradient-tool look that Wildstorm had for a while. I suspect the labour involved in each page is vast – there’s many many panels that could stand alone as prints.
Plot-wise, things are moving at a comparatively sedate pace, but I guess (hope) this is intentionally to allow for more character development. Of course the dialogue is tight and sharp, but I’d be surprised to get anything else.
UPDATED: something to look forward to in May.
