Review of Black Cloud
Article By: Nicole Jean Turner
Publisher: Image Comics
List Price: $3.99
Publisher: Image Comics
List Price: $3.99
Black Cloud from Image Comics hit the shelves this past April with a stunning debut. The cover caught my attention immediately with bright colors and a woman front and center with a lightning bolt sword nonchalantly over her shoulder. Woah.
The narration brings us into her story using a lot of big voice up front, hitting on concepts of storytelling and how through the ages people have had their reasons big and small for passing on legends. We’re then brought into focus of present day, where a snapshot of the narrators unfortunate circumstances grip us with a forceful emotional hold. Sympathy, specifically. Our narrator then jars us into a mirror like realm of facing us--the outside reader’s--present day reality of the world as it stands. Think, existential dread and fourth wall breaking in technicolor and then suddenly--the pages go black and white.
Bits of color begin to come back in, molding the bigger concepts around the narration and characters. There’s a bunch of ambiguous leading in the dialog, and ambitious use of attribution and assuming the reader can follow. The story flashes back into one of the previous scenes we were in, and, were it a movie or television show. I think I’d have followed better--because as viewers we grant these freedoms to set us up for everything to come. But for this comic, I felt like as a reader I was tossed around too quickly without enough direction or assistance to stay present.
The bigger concepts though are what kept me reading. I figured, somewhere down the line I’ll understand what’s going on. The plot hinges on a bit of politics, takes some pop culture liberties, and wraps it all in a delicious neon scifi blanket. I like it. If Inception was mixed with drugs and spun out on an potter’s wheel, you’d get Black Cloud.
I didn’t get much character development from the first issue, but Zelda seems fierce and sharp and I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy reading her story very much. My only qualms and hopes for future issues, is to find a clearer progression of events and balance between the multiple worlds she travels through.
Bits of color begin to come back in, molding the bigger concepts around the narration and characters. There’s a bunch of ambiguous leading in the dialog, and ambitious use of attribution and assuming the reader can follow. The story flashes back into one of the previous scenes we were in, and, were it a movie or television show. I think I’d have followed better--because as viewers we grant these freedoms to set us up for everything to come. But for this comic, I felt like as a reader I was tossed around too quickly without enough direction or assistance to stay present.
The bigger concepts though are what kept me reading. I figured, somewhere down the line I’ll understand what’s going on. The plot hinges on a bit of politics, takes some pop culture liberties, and wraps it all in a delicious neon scifi blanket. I like it. If Inception was mixed with drugs and spun out on an potter’s wheel, you’d get Black Cloud.
I didn’t get much character development from the first issue, but Zelda seems fierce and sharp and I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy reading her story very much. My only qualms and hopes for future issues, is to find a clearer progression of events and balance between the multiple worlds she travels through.
