Out #1

Out #1

AWA Upshot Studios 2021

Written by Rob Williams

Illustrated by Will Conrad

Coloured by Marco Lesko

In the waning days of World War Two, with the Allies advancing, a desperate Nazi officer unearths an ancient force of evil that he hopes will turn the tide of battle: a vampire. To test the power of his secret weapon, he unleashes the monster on an unsuspecting group of Allied POWs. It's up to Nocona, a Comanche language expert, to communicate with the vampire to find out what it really wants.

One of the first things I thought was this reminds me of The Keep, which by the way is one of my all-time favourite novels and introduced me to F. Paul Wilson. What Rob is doing here though is taking the idea and making it his own unique story. I like this too because while the Germans believe they can control this monster we all know that it doesn’t matter to him who he feeds on and it won’t be long until the Germans learn that this monster they’ve unleashed answers to no one but himself. The introduction of this wide array of characters is done extremely well and I find myself already wondering how many of those introduced will survive this nightmare ordeal. That’s going to be the hard part for the reader, seeing characters whom they like succumb to the darkness.

I am in love 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 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 and this introduces us to the personalities magnificently. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages introducing the story, the characters and this world pulls the reader in instantly and leaves you wanting to see so much more.

I greatly appreciate the way we see this being structured and how the layers within the story begin to emerge and grow. The layers open up avenues that we want to see explored and as they introduce us to the possibilities they add this delicious 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 is impeccably achieved.

The interiors here are bloody mindbogglingly brilliant to see. The linework is exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this bewildering detail within the work is truly stunning. I love that backgrounds are important to the story and that they enhance and expand the moments so beautifully. They actually feel like they become a part of the story as another character thanks to the ambiance that this brings. They also 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. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The colour work shows a master colourist at work. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a brilliant eye for how colour works and how to maximise their effects.

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This is really something that blew me away. The moment you see the first page and you take in the artwork you instantly know that this is going to be something utterly amazing. What we couldn’t know, even with the hype surrounding its release, is that this is going to be the year's biggest hit. It has that delicious tension, mystery, intrigue and its set in a place that is meant to bring out fear and unease. It does this with such aplomb too as we get sucked into this for the moment we start reading. This is brilliantly written with phenomenal characterisation that’s wrapped up in the most stunning mindbogglingly brilliant interiors.