You know a comic book creator has made it when he finally gets the creations of his 6-year old self published at Dark Horse Comics. “Jack Kraken” may have come from a burgeoning creative young mind who has grown into a bonafide talent, but is it worth your money today? Read our spoiler-free review to find out.
Written by Tim Seeley
Illustrated by Ross Campbell, Tim Seeley, and Jim TerryJack Kraken is the best agent the Humanoid Interaction Agency has. Using his extranormal powers, Jack protects humans and humanoids alike from those who would kill them. Follow Jack’s adventures rescuing kids and stopping the things that go bump in the night.
I think a lot of us have been there. I know I used to noodle around with made-up comic superheroes of my own when I was a prepubescent boy. I’m not sure whether I’d turn beet red or jump for joy were I to find my old pocket folders full of scattered mini comics. Tim Seeley, on the other hand, embraces one of his oldest creations with gusto in his “Jack Kraken” stories for Dark Horse Comics, and gives us a unique look at the earliest versions of the character.
But does a relic from 30 years ago make for great storytelling today? Seeley is no slouch when it comes to penciling (as the second story in the 3-story anthology one-shot proves), and while we get to see how Jack Kraken’s look has evolved over time, it definitely feels like a 6-year old kid asking himself “What would look the coolest?” The design seemed to have come before the backstory – as you might expect (maybe I’m only reading into that based on the back matter).
Regardless, thanks to the growth of “modern comic writer Tim Seeley”, it ends up feeling like a pretty fully-formed idea. You might not expect it from looks alone, but “Jack Kraken” features three satisfyingly complete stories from a veteran writer who has clearly learned a lot about structure and pacing over the years.
The spiritual premise of the book recalls “Hellboy” a bit. Whether intended or not, it’s difficult not to think of Big Red when you watch Kraken go about his business as a dark-humored H.I.T. agent, using his powers to take on supernatural events. Kraken is quick-witted and politically incorrect at times, but dammit, he gets the job done. There’s a surprising amount of heart to “Jack Kraken”, incorporating the rescue of kidnapped children, exiled inhuman races, and under-appreciated two-bit allies. The rare, fully-formed feeling of the one-shot comes from Seeley’s ability to trust the reader to fill in some of the implied history between the characters, as well as understand the richer mythology of the world even as it’s delivered at a fast pace and over relatively few pages. There’s also a richer mythology behind Kraken which is oft-hinted at but rarely delved into, considering the 40-page limit of the one-shot. But it all intrigues fairly well enough to the point that you’d expect to see more Kraken at some later date.
“Jack Kraken” features 3 different artists over the course of its 3 stories, but each of them compliments one another well and none of the 3 are distractingly different in style. One of these is none other than Seeley himself, who draws the middle story of the aforementioned tragic tale of inhuman intolerance. More than elsewhere in the issue, Seeley’s artistic style has echoes of ’90s Image Comics-era design work: big emotions, big hair, and lots of visible pain and angst in its principal characters. It works though, not only because Seeley is a more economical storyteller than the Image guys tended to be at the time, but also because he commits himself to the concept.
Ross Campbell himself pitches an even prettier looking introduction to the character in the opening segment. This story deals with Kraken rescuing endangered children, and boy does Campbell make you feel for the little scamps. Campbell’s character work is terrific, giving Kraken a confident and cocky body language as he manipulates his long, lithe appendages to his will. His brand of pseudo-science fiction and Lovecraftian creep factor mixed with Seeley’s witty scripts would make for a hell of an ongoing title.
Continued belowJim Terry brings it home with a visual approach that’s bittersweet and surprisingly affecting. While this is perhaps the least intriguing of the stories for its mythology, it packs the largest punch in the end, in a twist that I dare not spoil here.
There’s enough going on in “Jack Kraken” to make it worth your while, while also having the added benefit of being something of a victory lap for a creator in Tim Seeley, who has been recently having some big time success at a variety of publishers. The stories are rough around the edges, but each of them is visually and conceptually rewarding on some level if you give them a chance. Although it would certainly be fun to see, it’s difficult to envision “Kraken” garnering the wild fandom or praise of something like Seeley’s “Hack/Slash”, but as a one-off it’s a surprisingly affecting comic that comes from a place of true love for the genre – even from an incredibly young age.
Final Verdict: 7.7 – Buy
