The Wall #1

The Wall #1

Magnetic Press 2021

By Mario Alberti

Based On A Story By Antoine Charreyron

Solal and Eva cross the wasteland in search of medicine, and their path leads them toward The Wall, a massive structure protecting a fabled Utopia. But to get inside, they'll have to work with a ragtag group of scavengers and rebels…

I’m a sucker for a post-apocalyptic story and when it comes from Magnetic Press you know that this is going to be some absolutely stellar high class storytelling. It is too, high class storytelling that is. Immediately you see the interior artwork you are instantly pulled in and want to find out what this is all about. Once you start to get into it you begin to get a sense of this world and the great thing about that is we don’t get an explanation as to what happened it’s just this is how life is now. This generates interest and it engages the reader because it takes the reader into a realm where their own mind and imagination has to think of reasons why we see the buildings look like they do. Then to meet the stars of the story and realise just how young, inexperienced and let's be honest naive that they are. It makes this feel accessible and already you want to root for them knowing so little about them.

I’m loving every single moment 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 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 does a magnificent job in establishing their personalities. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages introducing us to the story, the characters and this world that they live in really captures the readers’ mind, creativity and imagination beautifully.

I’m loving the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story begin to emerge and grow. I also like the way we see the layers within the story open up new avenues to be explored and whether they have already started to be or simply won’t be they all add this fantastic 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.

The interiors here are absolutely bloody mindbogglingly brilliant to behold. The linework is truly exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level & quality in the attention to detail that it simply blew my mind at how stunningly gorgeous it is. How we see backgrounds being utilised to enhance and expand the moments feels like they become a character in their own right. How we see them 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 marvellously rendered. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows such a brilliant eye for how colour works. That this is watercolour work as well just leaves me so bewitched.

I am such a huge fan of this book already. We see how things progress and rather quickly without it feeling rushed is quite the accomplishment. The level and quality of storytelling we see through the skill, talent and verve of the writing and then to see these bloody magnificent interiors bringing it to life and then icing on the cake is this tremendous characterisation happening. I fell in love with this almost instantly and then as the story took me through the pages I gained a new appreciation of just how much talent we see in Mario.