Unborn #1

Unborn #1

Source Point Press 2021

Written by Frank Gogol

Illustrated by EV Cantada

Lettered by Sean Rhinehart

On a strange world, five explorers mine for super fuels in a last-ditch effort to save a collapsing Earth, but the mission goes to hell when they are overrun by a hostile alien species. With humanity's survival hanging in the balance, the crew must eradicate the deadly horde and salvage the mission. But what if the monsters aren't the only things they have to worry about? What if the most dangerous threat facing the crew is each other?

Okay I'm more than a little super intrigued by what I read here. I do like how this feels like a classic kind of science fiction story where a group goes out to find what’s needed to save the Earth and finds themselves on the dark side of things. It throws in those romance and horror elements to the story to keep the reader guessing on what is going to happen at any given moment and it engages the reader as your mind works to not only process the information but to see if you can apply it to the story in ways that aren’t seen on the pages. Frank has created a very solid first issue here and it continues to show him grow and evolve as a writer.

I am enjoying 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 narration, or documents, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter brings their personalities to the forefront. The pacing is great and as it takes us through the pages introducing the story, the characters and the world they live in it instills the desire to see and know more.

I like how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story emerge and grow. I also like how we see the layers open up new avenues to be explored and while some are there are those that won’t be and regardless they all add this great 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 is extremely well achieved.

The interiors here are pretty nicely rendered as well and they have a very nice traditional comic book style feel to them. The linework is clean, crisp and sharp and with their varying weights and techniques that we see being utilised to create the detail within the work is superb. Alien landscape and very few backgrounds but at least we see some beautiful colours being utilised instead of blank space and I for one appreciate that immensely. The creativity and imagination that we see is beautifully rendered. The way we see the composition within the panels brings out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show an extremely talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a nice understanding of how colour works.

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This is off to a fantastic start and it certainly captures the readers’ attention and imagination. It has a solid premise and some incredibly interesting moments that promise to change the way we see this moving forward. With some strong writing and excellent characterisation wrapped up in these classic interiors make for some highly entertaining reading.