Totality Ashcan Advance Look

Totality Ashcan Advance Look

Scout Comics 2021

Available at NYCC

Written by Brendan Deneen

Illustrated by Mauricio Melo

Coloured by Igor Paz

Lettered by Fabricio Grellet & Magic Eye Studios

Reeling from the sudden death of her husband, army veteran Jen Shaw decides to take her two daughters on a road trip to witness the totality -- a complete eclipse of the sun that can only be seen from a small section of the Earth. At the moment of the full eclipse, however, everyone within the path of the totality collapses and wakes up hours later to a blood red sky. With all technology no longer working, Jen quickly gets her girls into the car and starts to head back home. However, beyond the path of totality, the entire world has turned into a burnt out wasteland, and anyone who ventures there dies instantly, painfully. Soon, Jen and her daughters are separated and the only safe place is within the path of totality, where society is quickly beginning to break down....

Well I am a fan already. What this ashcan does is get Jen and her girls to a place that is out of the way to watch the total eclipse of the (heart) sun. It is pretty revealing in and of itself with everything we see here.

I 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 through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a marvellous job in bringing their personalities to life. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages introducing us to the story, the characters and the world they live in. I am not kidding when I say that the character development is utterly amazing to see throughout this part of the story and if this is what we have to look forward to then this is going to be a huge story.

I enjoy seeing the way that this is being structured and how the layers within the story begin to emerge and grow. I also really like the way that this ends as well because it’s just at the right moment. The layers we see open up avenues to explore and whether or not some will and some won’t they still add some great depth, dimension 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 exceptionally well.

This has some classic comic book style interiors and these are really nicely rendered. I would like to see more backgrounds, they really enhance and expand the moments and it would be nice to see more of them. The composition within the panels does bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The linework is strong, clean and crisp and how the varying weights are utilised to create the detail within the work is incredibly well rendered. 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 various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a strong eye for understanding how colour works.

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This is like what an opening for a book is supposed to do. It grabs your attention, makes you want to see and know more about what is going on here. The last page isn’t the cliffhanger you expect and honestly I like that because the real cliffhanger happens halfway through the issue. More folks need to do Ashcan’s of their stories because it’s a great extended view of what is to come and it allows the creators to really flex some muscle so to speak and give their story a proper start, or at least a better backstory for what’s to come. I got news for ya too, because this checks off every box for that.