Never Never #1

Never Never #1

Heavy Metal Comics/Virus 2020

Written by Mark McCann

Illustrated by Phil Buckenham

Coloured by Angese Pozza

Lettered by David Withers

Winter is seduced by the boy-sprite, Petros - off to the Never, Never. A place where children never grow up and adults are the enemy. What would such a place look like? Where resources are scarce. Time passes, but age is obsolete. War with adults, starved and insane from constant battle, is the norm. What would age-less boys free of civility and role-models be willing to do to survive. To live Forever. A young girl will face her greatest test; an island full of immortal cannibals with a dark secret that sustains its existence, in the most unnatural and awful of ways.

I absolutely LOVE this reimagining of the Peter Pan story. Lets face it a lot of the stories I grew up with if they were real would’ve come with parental advisories. I mean Mary Poppins would’ve been arrested for child endangerment and you all know it. So you could say Winter was coerced and kidnapped by Petros and if you don’t listen to your folks he’ll come take you away, morals of a story can be so fun. Alright so while i’m having fun with this it should be clear that this story engaged me on a deep level that I’ve gone and thought of so much that’s not even remotely on the page. This is the sign of excellent writing and storytelling folks.

I am thrilled with 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 is extraordinary thanks to the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances that they encounter. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story along with the twists & turns keep the reader engaged and glued to the pages.

I am enjoying how this is being structured and how the layers within the story emerge, grow and strengthen throughout. The layers contain the strongest characterisation as well as the backstory that helps us with the main arc and all of it adds this extra depth and complexity to the story. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is expertly achieved.

I’m really rather impressed with the interiors that we see here. The linework is strong, crisp and clean and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to showcase the detail work is extraordinary. That we see backgrounds as prolifically as we do makes me happy as they enhance the moments as well as work within the composition of the panels to bring us 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 colour work is equally as brilliant to see. How the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and colour work is equally as extraordinary to see. The work overall is utterly bloody spectacular to see and then the creativity and imagination on display is phenomenal.

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I love this book and yes it’s a little older, okay late last year, so talk to your shop and ask them to order this for you because this isn’t the story you remember. This is a childhood fable turned into this dark fantasy that will set your own imagination alight in ways that will chill and thrill you.