Deadbox #2

Deadbox #2

Vault Comics 2021

Written by Mark Russell

Illustrated by Benjamin Tiesma

Coloured by Vladimir Popov

Lettered by Andworld Design

A swap meet throws a marriage into crisis and threatens to undermine the faithful of Lost Turkey. The healing powers of a rom-com are required.

This is a crazy little series already. I love the opening here and in this day and age for Bobby to find a pair of pants that fit regardless if they are men’s or women’s shouldn’t be relevant but I guess in this small town it is something that’s a big no-no. I still like it and his enthusiasm when they fit and how he felt about them. It made me giggle and proud of him for his reaction, which by the way is priceless and let me tell ya it just goes to show that clothes should be genderless. Overall the story is crazy, crazy good that is. With the video we see and then how we see this relate to the laboratory well it all fits together like puzzle pieces when you are on a roll. I’m more than curious to know what all is being said in this issue so that all these different sections of the puzzle are being told in mysterious ways. I mean that pastor has to go in my book but I really wanna know what he said verbatim.

I’m rather 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 narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a marvellous job in bringing their personalities to the forefront. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story the more we’re left wondering and waiting for what’s going to come next.

I do like how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. How we see the layers within the story open up new avenues to be explored is so well constructed and it adds so much 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 are immaculately achieved.

The interiors here are really nicely rendered. I like the optical illusion that we see where we see two different styles in the same panel is phenomenally well rendered. The linework is fantastic and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level of detail within the work is utterly marvellous. We see a fair bit of backgrounds being utilised and I will say we could benefit from seeing more but they do enhance and expand the moments. 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 is achieved extremely well. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkable 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.

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The two gentlemen in the opening and the motel, which we see later on again, add something crazy to the book that really makes me want to know more about why this is here and how it came to look this way. The laboratory with the chimpanzee’s is another aspect I want to see, learn and know more about. So much going on within these pages that pull us back into the story and back for another issue is guaranteed. The writing is superb and the characterisation is enigmatic while the interiors really bring the fun and creepy factors to life perfectly. I need to know more about this work being created because it boggles the imagination that it even exists.