Dark Cloud Comin’
What a fantastic comic. I mean that in the most literal sense: this is one of those rare stories where, for every thing that is explained, you sense all sorts of other wonders right below the surface. This is the story of a young tomboy, her family, a giant and how it affects their society. This behemoth theoretically protects their society from some undefined harm, and all it takes to keep this arrangement going is the occasional pure baby to eat. That’s how things start, as the agent for The Holy Hand (local religious group who deals with the giant) comes for the brother of the young tomboy and she, seeing the effect this has on her mother, decides to go after the giant and try to reason with it. This is where the sense of a fully realized other world comes into play, as she passes talking stalactites when entering the cave and, when eaten by the giant, runs into a frog creature who has also been eaten.  The giant is also writing what appears to be a memoir on the cave walls, although we’re never given a clear glimpse outside of a few sentence fragments. Inside his belly the child takes the knife from the frog creature and continues searching for her brother, with disastrous results for the giant. Where does the town go now? How will they cope without a protector, if it was in fact protecting them at all? It’s rare that, after reading a comic, I’ll stop and wonder what a half dozen of the characters involved are doing after the comic ends. The obvious answer, of course, is nothing, as the comic is over, but there was so much depth to this comic that it felt like it could have gone on for ages. If all that wasn’t enough, the art was breathtaking, a clear step up from his previous work, not like that was bad to begin with. With the year being about half over (or with about half the year being left, if you want to be an optimist about it), this is probably the best comic I’ve read all year, or damned near, as I always forget about certain comics when I make claims like that. Still, even though people probably get desensitized to my enthusiasm for certain comics and have this part of the reviews fly right by them: buy this comic. If you’re at this website at all you love comics (or you’re related to me), and this is easily one of the best comics of the year. $3
