Revival #1: Hmmm, a Tim Seeley book, with a gorgeous art cover of a woman with a scythe in some kind of cold weather climate? You might know Seeley from Hack/Slash, and when you read the first couple of pages, you might be thinking strong woman character slashing ass and taking names in northern climes: Hack/Slash meets Fargo? We can only hope. A family of cops in Minnesota with people coming back to life on "Revival Day," which has obvious religious connotations, but also hints at zombie-ism. Revivals are usually associated with charismatic preachers reaching out to downtrodden communities in a tented event. Think miracle healers like in the Steve Martin movie Leap of Faith. This is starting off well.
The layout of the panels are very reminiscent of a movie or TV show, which is not easily done. There is a cinematic feel in these pages. The art by Mike Norton is really quite nice, and this first issue hits all the right notes. We start off in media res, Revival Day has already happened, the revivialists are already becoming a problem, because no one knows why it happened and the cause, and the people, to say the least, are acting strange. By the end of the issue we find out that the "revival" of one person will cause even more family strife than is already going on. And when that family is depended upon to keep the peace, this could get interesting. What I love about the art: Mike Norton has a great style, his architecture and his drawing of other inanimate objects gives his art a strong sense of realism, and he has the great gift of being stylized just enough that you see family resemblances. He uses the freckled cheeks of the Cypress family (from the mother's side we can presume) as a cue to recognize the family, but you can see the resemblance anyway, with or without the freckles, which is great. It is not always easy to establish solid, consistent family resemblances in drawn characters within the confines of the dimensions of comic book panels. I liken his skill to Gabriel Rodriguez' masterful drawing the of Locke family in Locke & Key. Always consistent, always recognizable. Rodriguez is more stylized, though, whereas Norton has a more classic only moderately stylized realism.
My one criticism of this first issue is that we see some kind of alien or mutant or something in the woods. We see it in its entirety, Cooper Cypress sees it. We all see it. My thought is, there is enough action and potential future action just from the events that climax on the final pages, that I would much rather have seen the above mentioned figure in issue #2 or later. We could have been shown the boy's reaction and fear and we could have seen a shadow. I don't think seeing the figure helped anything. I was a bit put off to be honest. This first issue makes me think of the opening scene of an X-Files episode, and then after the opening theme song we would see Fox and Mulder arrive on the scene. What will make this an interesting book is that it will clearly be a Cypress family affair. Family turmoil, a bizarre (extraterrestrial?) series of events unfolding, and some bloody good fun. I truly cannot wait for the second issue of this hopefully ongoing title.
Funny thing: Looking through some stacks of my comics, I come to find I saw and totally ignored a preview of this book in a Free Comic Book Day promo issue from Image. I wish I had paid more attention then, because it would have been more of an anticipated premiere rather than a happy accident of finding this book the day it came out.
A new blog post! Finally! I was beginning to think you were some sort of...I don't know...Duke McMahon.
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