Midnight Sky #8

Midnight Sky #8

Scout Comics 2019

Written by James Pruett

Illustrated by Scott Van Domelen

Coloured by Ilaria Fella

Jennifer and Elita fight for their lives against the horde of swamp creatures that are trying to prevent them from rescuing Alejandro from the Changelings. Meanwhile, Alejandro finds himself face to face with the Prime Changeling and discovers that he shares more than just a species as it is revealed that the Prime is his true father. Now, Alejandro is faced with the most important decision of his life, whether loyalty to his true bloodline and heritage is more powerful than the love of his human mother and family with the fate of the world at stake.

I really enjoy this book. The opening here is fantastic as we see Jennifer and Elita fighting for their lives against one heck of a great creature. Great because of how we see it not because of what it actually is mind you.

The creativity and imagination that we see is off the charts and it just takes a cue from evolution on steroids to make it come to life. That the cavalry comes in the nick of time and it is who it is should come as no surprise even though it did surprise me lol.

I like the way that this is being told. The story & plot development we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceedingly well. The character development is fantastic thanks to how we see the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances the encounter. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story along with the twists & turns really pull us into this beautifully.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve, strengthen and emerge anew depending on how the avenues open up. The bits that we see within the layers add extra depth and complexity to the story as we see Alejandro’s story unfold and how the family comes together to find him. These work with the main arc or surround it and really are great in how we see the bigger picture. How we see everything working together to create the stroy’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is so well achieved.

The interiors here are absolutely wonderful! The linework that we see is phenomenal and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to create the detail work that we see is magnificent. I do really like the style of the work we see here and its strong comic book style work because it just adds this uplifting feel to it that is infectious. That we see background being utilised as they are not only enhance the moments but how they work within the composition of the panels to bring us depth perception, a sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is great to see. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a strong, talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is fantastic! How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is extremely well rendered.

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This has been one of my guilty pleasure books. James really hit upon a great idea and he’s done an extremely nice job in bringing it to life with this diverse group of characters. With intelligent writing and stellar characterisation alongside this level & quality in the artwork this book stands out and shows us why Scout continues to know what great storytelling is.