The Last Mundane #1

The Last Mundane #1

Markosia 2021

By Jorge Perez Bucheli

Armageddon is finally upon us! And life will never be the same for Adam and his loyal friends. However, life must go on, and they must emerge from the safety of their bunker to face the challenges of a desolate world plagued by malicious scavengers, catastrophe and a multitude of strange events to discover if there is still hope remaining for humanity.

We all know I am a firm believer in small press publishing houses and Markosia is one of those that continues to impress me with their wide range of titles. This one caught my eye and I just knew that I had to read and review it. I am a sucker for a post apocalyptic story and this one is unlike anything you’ve ever seen or read before. The originality and uniqueness of the characters and the events that we see already in this first issue are sure to make this one of those absolute standout gems. This is nothing like I was expecting and now I have to wonder why it is I’ve never seen anything close to is as of yet?

I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through the way that the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. I really like how this starts off and how we are kind of in the middle of things and as the story moves forward it we are treated to the full story, bits and pieces at a time. The character development that we see is fantastic! While there are still unanswered questions and those have this habit of engaging the reader into the story in some wonderful ways. We are constantly looking, seeing and thinking and that’s the tell-tale sign that the writer has some serious chops. The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way we are treated to quite the interesting life of young Adam.

I like how we see this being structured as well as how we see the layers within the story beginning to emerge and take shape. This really manages to make us feel like we are seeing the natural progression of the story. Of course seeing how everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow contributes to that greatly as well.

The interiors here are really rather sharp. The way that we see the linework and how it’s varying weights are being utilised to bring out the detail work that we’re seeing is wonderfully rendered. From the intricacy of the picture frame to the way we see the brickwork as well as how backgrounds are seen within the composition within the panels playing such important roles in the way we see the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the book is utterly marvellous. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a solid, interesting and very talented eye for storytelling. The creativity and imagination we see is great as well. The colour work is beautifully rendered as well and how we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show some sensational understanding of how colour works.

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I in like flynn as Jorge has caught me hook, line and sinker as I am invested in the story and the characters we are meeting. Markosia is an amazing little publishing house and if your local shop or subscription service isn’t offering this then you need to speak up and make sure they get it in for you. You aren’t going to be sorry once you read the book and see exactly what it is I’ve been talking about!