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Almost American #1

Aftershock Comics

By Steven LeitmanPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Almost American #1

Aftershock Comics 2021

Written by Ron Marz

Illustrated by Marco Castiello

Coloured by Flavio Dispenza

Lettered by Rus Wooton

Spies...like us? In 2008, husband-and-wife Russian intelligence operatives walked into the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic in order to defect, making a deal to trade secrets for new lives. But instead of the American Dream, Janosh and Victorya Neumann found themselves caught up in red tape, bureaucracy and turf wars between the FBI and CIA — all while their past tries to kill them.

One of the things that attracted me to this story is that it’s not like the cold war infiltration of spies into the American landscape, no it is much more recent than that. These aren’t sleeper agents gathering information for the Motherland, no these are folks who fear for their lives back home and want to live a better life and have no other viable option but to defect to the United States in a way that isn’t obvious or as overt. What happens shows the inefficiency of our Government and how it operates and I see this kind of brutally honest look is exactly what we need to see in order to fully understand the machinations of how the world works. Petty men and women who think they wield power and don’t comprehend how little they matter get to make decisions.

I am very much enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter helps to establish their base personalities that we’ll see expand and change from here. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages introducing us to the story, the characters and the world and sets the stage for what we’re going to see.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story emerge and grow is superbly rendered. I love seeing how the layers are opening up different avenues and while some will be explored and others won’t be, what they all have in common is that they add this great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is extremely well achieved.

The interiors here are incredibly sharp! The linework is clean, crisp and strong and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level & quality of detail work that we see throughout the book is magnificently rendered. How we see backgrounds utilised to enhance and expand the moments as well as how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a sensational eye for how colour works.

I’m a sucker for an intelligent story driven book and this is what that promises to be. No superheroes, no powers, just plain old fashioned drama, intrigue and a little adventure as our intrepid couple tries to stay one step ahead of their past while striving for a better future. This is smart, intelligent writing with some damn fine characterisation and some beautiful interiors that draws the reader in and captures the attention perfectly.

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About the Creator

Steven Leitman

Just me talking about the comics I enjoy reading, ones that you might not know exist and spotlighting the indie creators that excite me.

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