Out Of Body #2

Out Of Body #2

Aftershock Comics 2021

Written by Peter Milligan

Illustrated by Inaka Miranda

Coloured by Eva De La Cruz

Lettered by Sal Cipriano

The occult mystery gets weirder, as Dan’s experience is a little too near-death than he’d like – until he’s saved by the psychic called Abi from both the point of no return and a maniac in a deep-sea-diver’s suit. The psychic shows Dan how his astral self can enter living people and look at their thoughts and memories, which Dan hopes will help him discover who wanted him dead. But before then he has to deal with an over-affectionate nurse – and some shocking news that changes everything!

This is one interesting story so far. I like that what we’ve been seeing thus far with Dan finding his way out of body and with Abi finding him in this near obsessive desire to save him to the point she’s distracted from everything else in her life. Including paying clients who she only tried halfheartedly to help. We do see the bad guy in all this and his idea to steal souls to keep his end of a nasty bargain so that Dorian may keep his youthful appearance so long as he gets a fresh soul to give to Satan, whom he bartered with. It’s a heavy book in some regards and yet it reads incredibly well and interesting from so many different facets.

I’m really rather 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 exceptionally well. The character development through the dialogue, the character interactions, their actions themselves as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances that they encounter are magnificently told. The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story you can’t help but feel like you are almost a part of things.

I greatly appreciate how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and strengthen. The layers contain the characterisation and the unexpected moments, that nurse for example dayum, and whether they work with the main arc or swirl around it they add 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 so greatly achieved.

I love these dynamic interiors here! The linework is exceptional and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this amazing detail work that we see is so bloody brilliant. The creativity and imagination on display is phenomenal and so diverse. The utilisation of backgrounds throughout not only enhance the moments but 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 spectacular eye for storytelling. The colour work is equally as brilliant as well. That old time diving suit with symbols is a gorgeous touch and how it looks on the pages is brilliant! The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a stupendous eye for how colour can, should and does look when it’s done right.

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I love the drama of what we’re seeing here and between Dan and his current ordeal and his brother and whomever that woman is arguing over him and then to see the nurse act the way she does and this doesn’t even come close to what Dorian is up to with his flunky and it just all keeps piling up on top of each other. Because Peter is such a brilliant writer everything works the way it should and the writing is phenomenal and the interiors are just brilliantly rendered so that you so lost in what you see. This is why Aftershock is at the forefront of amazing storytelling.