Pantomime #2

Pantomime #2

Mad Cave Studios 2020

Written by Christopher Sebela

Illustrated by David Stoll

Coloured by Dearbhla Kelly

Lettered by Justin Birch

The Manager has broken into the lives of our teen criminals and pulls them further into the darkness. Giving them a crook’s playground to train their skills to send them out on jobs for him. Can the kids get out before it’s too late, or will The Manager swallow them up?

So here I am trying to catch up and this is one of those series that I really wanted to do a few reviews of so you all know it’s out there. The idea Christopher came up with here is beyond amazing and I think it takes a common misconception and turns on its ear in a way that so many folks need to see. I wouldn’t call this an all-ages book but definitely T+ and I wholeheartedly believe that as many folks as humanly possible read this story. It will such an affect on each person to read it that I am not sure you will others the same way again. Plus it’s just a damn good book and told in such a way that’s pretty stupendous.

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 as how the reader learns information is presented extremely well. I don’t know why folks were so scared of characters like Jericho because here we have a whole group of deaf kids who have no trouble communicating with one another as we see abridged hand motions with what those words are that are being said. It is a great way to get the point across and that the kids aren’t the only ones here who understand and know just enough to be a factor is rather interesting to me. The character development remains impressive and to see it through the combination of words and visuals, mainly faces and facial expressions is exciting. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists & turns along the way well you won’t believe the kind of things that happen this issue.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow and new ones emerge we get to see a look into what makes kids wanna break the rules and the adults who use them. Plus it’s really nice to see how everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow.

I think the interiors here are lovely. I want to see backgrounds utilised more often, I am not a fan of blank backgrounds they don’t do anything to enhance what we see and feel a little lazy to me. The linework is strong and confident and how the varying weights are utilised to bring out the detail work that we see is nicely rendered. The depth perception that we see is great and there is some a nice sense of scale as well. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a nice talented eye for storytelling.f the colour work is also nicely rendered. How we see the hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is extremely nice to see. I like the techniques we see in use here for laying the colour down too because it isn’t one style alone and that has the ability to draw the eye around the page.

​

Sometimes you come across a great little book that really strikes a chord with you in a way you weren’t expecting and this will be one of those books.