There are a lot of comics out there, but some just stand out head and shoulders above the pack. With “Don’t Miss This” we want to spotlight those series we think need to be on your pull list. This week, we look at “Skyward,” a high concept series with soaring artwork and a down-to-earth heroine.
Who Is This By?
“Skyward” is the brainchild of Joe Henderson, executive producer and co-showrunner of the television series Lucifer, originally adapted by DC/Fox from source material found in Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman.” “Skyward” is illustrated by Lee Garbett, also closely tied to DC, having worked on the “Lucifer” comic there, as well as various Batman projects and the “Batgirl” title when it relaunched in 2009. Colors are by Antonio Fabella, who has numerous credits for Marvel. Letters are by Simon Bowland, whose recent work includes such titles as “Motherlands,” “Mech Cadet Yu” and “Plastic Man.”
Notably, Henderson is said to be adapting “Skyward” as a motion picture for Sony, but with 10 issues remaining in this 15-issue maxi series, no time frame has yet been announced. Thankfully, Henderson’s script and Garbett and Fabella’s artwork remain firmly grounded in the comic book medium rather than coming across like a glorified storyboard, as is sometimes the case with multimedia projects and creators who crossover from TV and movies to comics. Whatever form it may take, “Skyward” was clearly conceived as a comic book first and the execution respects that.
What’s It All About?
Ever since the calamitous date long since known as G-Day, gravity as we know it has ceased to exist. Everything and everyone that isn’t fastened or tethered down is in constant risk of floating away, off into the ether, never to be seen again. Obviously, a great many people perished back on that fateful day. Now, some twenty years later, the survivors have adapted to this bizarre, previously inconceivable world. At the center of it all is a father-daughter duo with decidedly different ways of dealing with it all. One remains shut in, terrified to go outside, while the other bounds around, working as a courier throughout the city, dreaming of adventure.
What Makes It So Great?
“Skyward” is definitely high concept, but two rather simple features combine to make it a must read title: a highly engaging protagonist and artwork that literally soars. As for the book’s heroine Willa, more on her in a moment. In terms of the book’s visual style, it definitely reflects the book’s gravity-free storyline.
Series creator Joe Henderson – a writer and producer by trade – has noted on more than one occasion that unlike TV and movies, comic books are free from the budgetary restrictions of costly special effects. In this case, his artists are similarly unconstrained by the pesky limitations of earthbound gravity and they take full advantage of this dynamic on virtually every page. Human bodies arc, float, drift, levitate and soar through the air, the idyllic pure blue sky serving as both a backdrop and destination, though not always a welcome one. Indeed, the book makes it very clear that the freedom of weightlessness – the ubiquitous childhood fantasy of being able to fly – comes with a heavy price. Despite the often cheery palette of heavily saturated colors, a distinct sense of foreboding undercuts it all. What goes up may not necessarily come down. That tension is palpable.
Though Henderson himself tends to quibble with the “post-apocalyptic” label, the book’s near-future dystopian setting in which gravity barely exists clearly powers the storyline. Naturally, as with seemingly all world altering cataclysms in works of fiction, while most people suffer and struggle to adapt to their harsh new conditions, there are those who benefit greatly from maintaining the new normal, acquiring newfound wealth and power.
Here, “Skyward” introduces a pretty significant twist. Willa, the protagonist mentioned above and daughter of the only scientist who may hold the key to reversing G-Day’s effects, isn’t entirely sure she’d ever want things to change. After all, a low gravity life is all she’s ever known and she kinda likes it that way. At best, Willa is ambivalent, less concerned with finding a way to reverse the phenomenon than she is with enjoying the world from a bird’s eye view. She’s not explicitly opposed to returning to a world with gravity as we know it, but she’s not in a hurry to get there either. As the series progresses, however, her motivations change and the pressure to side with her father and help return things to normal starts to become unbearable, setting up a series with clear external struggles combined with a inner conflicts for an incredibly rich storyline.
How Can You Read It?
“Skyward” #6 drops today at your local comic shop. You can also find it on Kindle and comiXology. Meanwhile, the trade paperback, collecting issues 1-5, also drops today. That book is entitled “Skyward Volume 1: My Low-G Life.” You can find it at your favorite book store, online retailer, local comic shop or ebook platform.
