They Fell From The Sky #5

They Fell From The Sky #5

Mad Cave Studios 2021

Written by Liezl Buenaventura

Illustrated by Xavier Tarrega

Coloured by DJ Chavis

Lettered by Joamette Gil

Everything comes to a head when the Ker royal family joins the fray. Old secrets come to light, and Orion’s past finally catches up with him. After the dust settles, will there be anything left of Boonville to save?

This is an absolutely delightful series. It is an all-ages title and there is a moral to the story or lessons to be learned which just makes it more endearing in my humble opinion. Also it’s about the power of friendship and how when you've got your friends by your side anything is possible. So yeah I personally think that there isn’t a reader out there who won’t find a way to connect with this story on a personal level. I also greatly appreciate that we see this whole it doesn’t matter who you are and if you are different or not there’s always a place for you with the friends that you make. Liezl has done a beautiful job of making this a truly extraordinary all-ages title so that adults will see what kids don’t and kids will take away their own aspects of the story.

I am a huge 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 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 that they encounter is utterly magnificent. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story to the big finish we’re thrilled right up to the end.

I am very much enjoying how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and strengthen. The layers of course contain the strongest bits of characterisation along with the plot twists and revelations some of which work with the main arc others simply swirl around it and all of them 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 achieved extremely well.

The interiors here really are charming. The linework is great and how we see the varying weights being utilised to create the detail work is fantastic! I absolutely love how we see backgrounds being utilised throughout and to see them work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope of the story is utterly marvellous. The creativity and imagination that we see throughout is fantastic and I love seeing these animal inspired aliens in the suits, it’s really kind of cute. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is superb. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a great eye for how colour works.

I like that Jeremy is their new friend and while once school starts up again this may change for now he’s a part of the gang and he did help them, and especially Jeb, during all of this so see even a bully needs to find friends who won’t judge them.

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Mad Cave Studios has earned mad respect from me. They’ve not tried to flood the market with books instead they take time to make sure the books are quality and have some gravitas to them. With some exceptional writing and characterisation wrapped up in these charming interiors this series can keep coming back time and again and I doubt we’d ever get bored.