We all knew 2012’s oversized one-shot was the start of something big. Now “Enormous” has got its own ongoing from 215 Ink – and hey, even a webseries. This 50-page first issue throws us back into one mind-boggling ecological disaster, and if you’re expecting large-scale devastation and gorgeous monsters to boot, you’ve got ’em.
Written by Tim Daniel
Illustrated by Mehdi CheggourIn the midst of a planetary crisis for food and fuel, a vast ecological cataclysm has spawned ‘The Enormous,’ massive beasts unlike anything ever encountered. Humanity struggles to stave off extinction. The original one-shot graphic novel returns in an ongoing series as the companion to the new live-action web series from Machinima!
This issue brings us back to “E-Day”, fleshing out an encounter that we experienced, briefly, in the original one-shot. But instead of leaping forward a year like the one-shot did, we stay right in the thick of things as the magnitude of this crisis comes clear.
One of the upsides of this approach is that we get to learn a bit more about our protagonist, Ellen. The one-shot went a lot of places, concentrating on the bands of survivors, but here we’re moving at a slower pace, getting more of a feel for what Ellen’s about. While the dialogue does, on occasion, have a stilted quality, it works where it needs to; what we learn about Ellen in the first half of the issue winds up giving more context to her encounter with her mother, lending the event more emotional gravity. And while we don’t spend much time with her, it seems even Ellen’s mother has more going on than meets the eye. I wouldn’t say that her character takes on depth, per se, but does she manage to surprise us.
Of course, disaster-themed works are always going to complement emotional devastation with the other kind, and when it comes to blowing up real good, this issue delivers. This may be a standard-sized comic book, but its ambitions are as big as ever, and the story maintains its widescreen appeal with sprawling views of all the destruction. (There’s even a fold-out spread.) This is where Mehdi Cheggour’s hallucinatory, hyper-realistic art really shines. Rendering sprawling scenes and gleaming monsters that seem to explode with light, this is a magnificent take on the disaster aesthetic. I picture Cheggour like some kind of comic-art Oprah – “And you get a lens flare, and you get a lens flare…” While it’s a lot to take in, it’s excessive in the best possible way, pushing the limits of what you can take in with one eye-sweep and keeping you in a state of awe.
Matters are just as overwhelming in close-up. The figures are rendered with painterly strokes that privilege every strand of hair and clothing crease, making every face come across with unusual gravitas. Happily, the straightforward layouts and white gutters give everything a bit of room to breathe; the pages look crisp, and read smoothly.
The photorealistic approach that makes the rest of the comic look so good can sometimes work to the characters’ detriment; the faces sometimes have a static quality, and during dialogue sequences this odd feeling of stillness seems to interrupt the flow from panel to panel. This static quality is also apparent during some of the action sequences, working against the cohesiveness of the whole. It’s not a distracting issue, though; more often than not, you’re too caught up in the moment-by-moment beauty of the pages to worry about the pacing.
All told – and whether you’ve read the one-shot or not – this first issue is a solid re-introduction to the “Enormous” universe. The renewed focus on our protagonist gives it a solid direction, and the sheer scope and scale of the art makes for a memorable read. It all adds up to an overwhelming experience that’s sure to gain the title some new fans.
Final Verdict: 8.5 – Buy
