O.B.E. Out of Body Experience #1

O.B.E. Out of Body Experience #1

Antarctic Press 2021

Written by C.M. Bratton & Kerry Valderamma

Illustrated by Christopher Allen

Coloured by Lee Duhig

Lettered by Douglas Dlin & Christopher Allen

In a dystopian near-future, nearly everybody can astral project, or OBE (Out-of-Body Experience), which has caused worldwide decimation. As civilization struggles to combat the addiction to OBEing, a haunted detective must work with a lonely social worker to catch an elusive killer who has learned how to hunt from the astral plane. This fantastical, philosophical, action-packed detective story explores how humanity faces extinction and yet refuses to bow down, while simultaneously evolving to thrive in a new society based between this world and the next.

The opening here really struck me with two items, one is how damn beautiful the interiors are and second that detective Cole is a complete and utter asshole. The whole idea of a cop abusing their power to get answers is a tad different than seeing someone like Batman doing it and why that is I’m not entirely sure. So right away the story engages the reader beautifully and as you get further and further in the more you want to see and know.

I am a fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well s how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. I do like that the more we learn the more questions we have as this is another way that the reader becomes more engaged the proceedings. The character development is pretty darn stellar and that Cole is who he is and unapologetically so is just icing on the cake for me. The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story, introducing us to the characters and this world is a thing of pure joy.

I am very much enjoying how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story are being shown. They really weave in and out and around the main arc so that they tie into it but are separate entities and I’m really impressed by how we see that. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow and how it moves the story forward is achieved extremely well. The overall flow of this book is incredible and it feels so natural in how we see the events unfold and makes an impressive feat of writing in my humble opinion.

The interiors here are so utterly and completely gorgeous! The linework is exquisite and how we see varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level and quality of detail into the work is mind blowing. How we see backgrounds being utilised to enhance the moments as they also work within the composition in the panels to bring depth perception, a sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the book is brilliantly handled. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show such a masterful eye for storytelling. The colour work is brilliantly rendered as well. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows such an eye for how to utilise colour effectively to showcase moments and really make them pop.

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I am fan of Antarctic Press and I have been for a little while now and when they keep putting out books of this high quality it just goes to show that some of the best books you aren’t reading are the ones from smaller publishing houses. You need to contact your local comic shop or subscription service and have them order this for you if isn’t on their walls already because this is going to blow you away and it will become one of new favourite titles. This is intelligently written and stunningly illustrated there’s no way you aren’t going to be impressed as all get out with this book.