After being whisked away from her colony, Vep begins training in the pneumatic arts. Our review will contain minor spoilers.
Written & illustrated by Sloane Leong
Lettered by Ariana MaherVep enters the world of pneumatic martial arts: combat focused on dismantling the resolve of an opponent, commanding their will, and dissolving their effect through your own volition. Vep soon realizes that power is artifice. Now, how to control it…?
If you thought Vep’s displaced life as a singing, egg-harvesting servant on an errant asteroid was bad, life in the city of Elefstris proves to be much worse. In another issue brimming with imagination, Sloane Leong continues Vep’s bio-punk odyssey. The story begins to take shape as Vep and the recruits struggle through the Chorus Academy’s grueling trials. Conflict is solidified, the character roster is expanded, and action is intensified.
“Prism Stalker” is as immersive as comics gets. The past issues have thrown us into an utterly alien world, bombarding our eyes with system-shocking imagery and squeezing us through its psychedelic nightmare of organic alien domains. Leong astral projects us into Vep’s world of cosmic flesh and slime mold habitats, an amorphous environment that seems to shift into ever more unexpected and dangerous forms. The alien world on display here is truly a celebration of the multitude of strange ways life expresses itself. It’s a hodgepodge of various flora and fauna from algae bloom walls and bulbous surfaces to chimeric creatures and vast webby networks of neuronal caverns.
Through color, texture, and design, Leong’s art achieves synaesthetic heights, warping your five senses. The ultra-saturated purples taste saccharine like sticky taffy. Caverns of fleshy columns sound like viscous fluid squelching through membranes. Toward the end in the fight between Vep and her lupine teacher, nauseous greens and bubble gum pinks clash in a painful way, indicating the physical and mental sickness of Vep’s current predicament. It’s hard not to feel that nauseating strike right there with her, engulfed in the high-intensity colors of pain. Speaking of color, Leong’s use of it truly transcends her art to another dimension. Ultra-saturated colors, her self-described “hyper-tropical” palette (in our interview with Leong) assaults your eyes with the intensity of the visual spectrum.
The textured visuals also contain a powerful tactile quality that urges us to experience Vep’s every physical sensation. This is especially true as Vep undergoes training in pneumatic combat and psychosomatic strangeness that ensues. Whether her body liquefies into a melted puddle or hollowed bones cause her to snap apart like chalk, the horror of it all is brutal and visceral. “Prism Stalker” tempts you to reach out and touch it, though Leong works overtime to ensure that you feel these eerie environments with your eyes.
Leong imbues the smallest of panels with pathos and power, reminding readers that important moments don’t always exist in bombastic displays or self-important splash pages. Five small panels huddled into the bottom corner of one page present a subtle, yet effective character beat. Vep’s stares at the subdermal implant in her hand (enslaving her to this planet) are interspersed with memories of a loved one’s tender touch, a mournful reminder of what she’s lost and what she’s fighting for. It’s a powerful moment despite the tiniest sliver of page real estate it receives. Other moments receive similar treatments, adding tiny panels of reactive expressions.
The third issue brings us the series’ first proper fight sequence. Action scenes expectedly unfold at a quicker pace near the issue’s end, as backgrounds devolve into simpler patterns or solid swaths of color. Though it’s far less interesting to witness than the earlier pages of introspection and heavy environmental detail, Leong’s inimitable style still brings plenty of eye candy to visually chew over if you can slow down enough to appreciate it. After Vep absorbs a devastating blow, her very nerves seem to ignite as a nebula of yellow-orange pain unfurls throughout her body. Her teacher’s reaction is reduced to a small black panel containing his disembodied, smug rictus of fangs. With more action on the horizon, it’s a relief that Leong can so effortlessly glide into whatever mode suits the story best.
Vep is truly a stranger in a strange land, an average biped caught up in the imperial machinations of the Chorus. Without the sci-fi dressing, Vep’s plight is certainly relatable to displaced peoples or any citizens unhappy with the powers that be in the world today. As a refugee, foreigner, indentured servant, and now an unwilling student warrior, Vep remains steadfast and strong through this alien crucible. The issue begins with Vep enduring grueling physical labor and a string of small panels shows the various injuries she’s endured since her arrival at the academy. But Vep persists. Even when her weakness or doubts leak out through word balloons, her actions speak to her true strength. “Prism Stalker” is a story about one woman’s determination in the face of tyrannical institutions and insurmountable odds, a story about how the core of your identity can be preserved despite your enemy’s desire to annihilate you.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – A wildly imaginative comic with synaesthetic art and a fierce heroine at the center, “Prism Stalker” #3 is another winner in Sloane Leong’s biopunk series.
