Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman show us science gone wrong as our heroes encounter The Crawfish Brain Thing from Another Dimension! Okay, that’s not what it’s called, but it gives you a pretty good idea of the tone and the reverence that they’re going for with “Station to Station.”
Written by Corinna Bechko
Illustrated by Gabriel HardmanSomething terrible has happened to the Bay Area. A pipeline explosion has totaled Treasure Island and destroyed the Bay Bridge. At least, that’s the official story. An interdimensional monster has been brought to San Francisco, and only the men responsible can fight it off, but can they resist its brainwashing? From the pages of Dark Horse Presents!
“Station to Station” is more of an homage piece than it is an original story, in earnest. In the same way that the monsters themselves were the draw of the most memorable old monster movies, the draw of “Station to Station” is the weird sci-fi art of Gabriel Hardman. Bechko and Hardman draw the reader in by making the protagonists into blank slates that learn along with the reader. By the end, they exist as necessary prey for the interdimensional beings that plague more than they exist as multidimensional characters. That’s sort of the point. Why is this massive creature here? How can we stop it? My god, what have we done? (Read that last one in Charlton Heston’s voice, or something.)
The truth is that, in the end, the answers to those questions don’t really matter. The one-shot is too short a format for them to matter. The journey is the most important thing. Bechko and Hardman did come up with a nifty premise for the proceedings (scientists that are trying to build “stations” in time that can be traveled to and from), but that really doesn’t end up mattering either, because everything goes wildly wrong. With the rip-roaring pace of Hardman’s visual storytelling, that journey really ends up being fun enough on its own.
Hardman’s artistic approach, the pacing, and the tone of the story looks to emulate earlier pulp sci-fi monster stories. Muted colors, throwback design-work, and sci-fi tropes are used to write a love-letter to stories of the past. Where “Station to Station” gains a lot of ground is by filtering these bygone sensibilities through a script that’s much more economic than the comics of yesteryear are. Bechko’s script is appropriately succinct, allowing Hardman to fill the panels with sprawling danger. She delivers a decent amount of information without getting as wordy or hokey as older comics tend to be. Really, her approach is just the sort of one you want to take to a story like this in the year 2013.
Hardman’s linework is detailed while keeping a loose quality that allows him to approximate a lot of weird sci-fi designs, most notably the horrible creature featured on the issue’s cover. More impressive and necessary for the book’s success is the attention he pays to perspective, making sure to change things up and keep the reader engaged. Our heroes dive and dart toward the reader, the rabid dinosaurs and monstrous floating creatures drawing ever nearer. Tension is the name of the game, and Gabriel Hardman makes every call an extremely close one.
“Station to Station” is a quality one-off story, even though it might not be very substantial. It expands on the most basic storytelling strengths of the Bechko/Hardman pairing, while not being particularly flashy or deep. It’s just good, solid homage work. Definitely worth your time if you’re as big a fan of big rubber monster movies or weird science horror stories as Bechko & Hardman seem to be.
Final Verdict: 7.0 – Buy
