Nine Stones #2

Nine Stones #2

Behemoth Entertainment 2021

By Samuel Spano

As Allie attempts to relax after the craziest day of their life, they’re immediately thrusted into an impromptu party. Only this one isn’t the kind with candy and piñatas. As this evolves, so does Allie and Chris’s relationship to a level Allie never expected.

Well things certainly took a different turn than I might have expected but with the way we see the flow of this story going it really works to create this controlled sort of chaos. It is odd to say controlled chaos but it’s the only phrase that I can think of that rightfully fits the situation properly. But within the chaos there’s actually a bit of order and within that order we see Allie and his desires and his demons coming to the surface and it is something that he has to deal with and that is growing exponentially with each new encounter. As the relationship evolves so do the desires and demons and I have to say thank god this wasn’t me when I was going through this for the first time because I can only imagine what it must be like trying to reconcile these feelings and emotions with the reality of your life and circumstances.

I am 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 exquisitely. 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 really does a magnificent job in fleshing out the personalities. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story we are pulled deeper and deeper into the story.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen is marvellously rendered. I love seeing how the layers continue to explore open avenues and open new avenues up. Not all the avenues will be explored but they manage to add this amazing depth, dimension and complexity to the story. It manages to really pull the reader into places that you didn’t know that you could go nor that you wanted or needed to go. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is stupendous.

I love the interiors here. The computer generated work is smooth, stylish and brings us to a place I wasn’t aware the story couldn’t do without. I do think we need to see more backgrounds being utilised it’s the one thing that’s really missing here, at least for me to get some more context. Still with how we see the composition within the panels as they bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is extremely well rendered. 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 we see within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a sharp eye for how colour works. I love how we see everything working together to create the mood, tone and feel that the different moments call for.

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This story came out of left field for me. I mean it’s Behemoth so I automatically know I’m going to read it but I wasn’t prepared for what the story was actually going to be about. This thrills and excites me because it just means without knowing what to expect every page is this complete revelation to me and it keeps me on my toes. This has some amazing writing and deep characterisation that is wrapped up in these great interiors that perfectly tell the story with or without the words. I’m blown away by the sheer amount of creativity and imagination that we see within these pages.