Silver City #3

Silver City #3

Aftershock Comics 2021

Written by Olivia Cuartero-Briggs

Illustrated by Luca Merli

Lettered by Dave Sharpe

Ru reunites with Sticks and, in spite of Mick's suspicions, enlists his help in thwarting the University's guards to get Junie to the Returns Portal – the gateway back to her living body. When they arrive, however, they realize they've been lured into a trap not all will manage to escape.

I am really enjoying this book. There is something about the premise that kind of reminds of purgatory, hells so-called waiting room that just happens to be a city where everyone works as if it were the real world. The afterlife isn’t so much after life but a continuation of life just in a different setting with a different set of rules and this really grabs your attention because Ru has probably broken every rule there is since she’s arrived. She and Junie never registered and instead started staying with this group of folks whose she’s enlisted in her quest to return Junie to her body that’s in a coma in the “real waking” world. It has all these elements that make if seem both familiar and foreign all at the same time. It really is something that captures the readers attention, imagination and engages them with every panel on every page.

I really like 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 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. The pacing is superb and as it take us through the pages revealing more and more of the story the deeper and deeper we’re pulled into this world.

I greatly appreciate the way that this is being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve, strengthen and emerge anew. The key to a great story is seeing the layers explored and having new ones constantly open allowing for the possibilities to grow and regardless if they work with the main arc or simply swirl around it they add depth, dimension and complexity to the story beautifully. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is perfectly achieved.

I am a huge fan of the interiors here. The linework is superb and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level & quality of detail work is astounding. We see a fair bit of backgrounds being utilised, and honestly I’m waiting to see every panel have them, and I enjoy how they enhance the moments and 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 magnificent to see. 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 is brilliantly rendered. How the various hues and tones within the colours are being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is beautifully rendered. The creativity and imagination that we see is wonderfully rendered and really manages to expand the world we see.

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As we see pieces of Ru’s life flash before us we get a greater understanding of not only what she’s gone through but that she’s been special her entire life. Psychokinesis I believe it’s called and while it only manifests during times of great stress or anger it does make her come across so much more interesting and intriguing. With some incredibly strong writing and amazingly dynamic characterisation alongside these stupendous interior pages we get this complete story that we are left wanting to see more of. Again another great sign of a strong powerful book is that when it’s done we have that strong desire to see and know more.