Out #3

Out #3

AWA Upshot 2021

Written by Rob Williams

Illustrated by Will Conrad

Coloured by Marco Lesko

Lettered by Sal Cipriano

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.

This is going to be talked about for a very long time to come. This is immaculately rendered in every sense of the word and it just continues to impress and blow us away with each new issue. Which is precisely how a series should progress. Then of course there is this amazing cliffhanger ending that took me by complete surprise and changed the game in ways that should worry every single living person at this Keep. I am also really impressed with the way that we see the Germans turning their captors against one another in such a crazy effective way and it really doesn’t take much just a public appearance or the suggestion someone is talking is all it really takes. It is a brilliant tactic that is employed and demonstrated exceptionally well.

I am over the moon chuffed 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 are presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter. What this does is showcase some spectacular work through their personalities that continue to help define who they are and how we see them. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story the more I want to see what's happening.

I’m pretty damn impressed with the way that this is being structured and how we see the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. I am also liking the way that we see these layers open up new avenues to be explored. Between the Allied Forces, the Germans and this creature there’s a lot going on and a lot to explore and they all add this great 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 are impeccably handled.

There are times I cannot handle the level & quality of the work that we see in the interiors here. Talk about mindbogglingly bloody brilliant work! The attention to detail we see through the linework, the varying weights and techniques being utilised and just the overall complexity of the work that isn’t just in the characters but every corner of what we see is literally mind blowing. The way that the backgrounds enhance and expand the moments as well as how they 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 is utterly magnificent. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masters eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a master colourist at work. How we see the application and how the colour is used to its maximum effect is stupendous.

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I love this book pure and simple. It is breathtakingly beautiful in terms of how the story and artwork are portrayed and the mood, tone and feel of the story is immaculately rendered by everything we see within these pages.