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Van Helsing Steampunk

Zenescope Entertainment

By Steven LeitmanPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Van Helsing Steampunk

Zenescope Entertainment 2021

Written by Lou Iovino

Illustrated by Vicente Cifuentes

Coloured by Robby Bevard

Lettered by Taylor Esposito of Ghost Glyph Studios

Van Helsing is heading to Los Angeles with every intention of soaking up the sun for a much-needed vacation. But, not even a trip to the west coast can be easy for the famed vampire hunter, as a new team of steam-powered villains are going to do their part to cut this trip short. Liesel will have to use every trick in her book to stand a chance against this new threat!

There are so many reasons to love this and not just because Masumi guest stars but because Rick and Liesel have definitely taken things to a whole new level. I mean a cross country vacation is serious though why Rick is obsessed with the hot dogs in L.A. when Nathans, with the skin on, are in NYC is beyond me. Still the mix of personal life and professional life that we see here is high wire balancing act and one that Lou finally manages to not only straddle perfectly but he turns it into a flying trapeze act.

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 exquisitely well. The way the story is presented and how these new characters are introduced is phenomenally well achieved. The character development that comes with this is amazing to see. How the dialogue with the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter really help flesh them out even further. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages it ends with us screaming for a limited series arc.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story emerge, grow and strengthen in such a limited amount of time as well as continue from previous stories is marvellous to see. With the vacation and Rick to seeing Masumi and the new crew in town really give this some major impact oomph. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is so well accomplished.

The interiors here are wonderfully rendered. The linework we see is strong, clean and crisp and with the varying weights and techniques that we see utilised to create the detail work is extraordinary. All the while it also still maintains this near traditional comic book style and that’s a nice accomplishment in and of itself. Backgrounds are fairly well utilised though I’d love to see more of them in play as they can really flesh out the moments and add so much to the scene. Still we get some great depth perception, a sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to what we see is nicely done. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkable eye for storytelling. The colour work is brilliantly rendered. How the various hues and tones within the colours are being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work showcases an eye who understands how to utilise colour effectively. Whether its flesh tones that add musculature to the way light sources add depth and complexity to the objects it’s extremely impressive to see how colour is mastered in such ways.

While I love the one-shots we really need to see more limited-series instead of never ending one-shots. These are good for in-between arcs but shouldn’t be relied this heavily upon this often. With what we learn this issue and what’s revealed there NEEDS to be a six issue run coming behind it that deals with all of this. I’ll be greatly disappointed if there’s another one-shot instead because it’s like being cheated out of good storytelling. These are bits and we want sections so let’s hope that starts to happen.

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About the Creator

Steven Leitman

Just me talking about the comics I enjoy reading, ones that you might not know exist and spotlighting the indie creators that excite me.

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