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ABSENCE OF INK THEATRE #2
Mildly Recommended (6/10)
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Absence of Ink Press
"Raven's End"
Writer: Kevin Gunstone
Artist: Alessandro Scacchia
"Bune's World"
Writer/Artist: Rick Johnston
"Soliloquy"
Writer: Rob Vollmar
Artist: Rajiv Golay
"Gareth Axel"
Writer: Raymond Blakey
Artist: Ron Davey
"The Castaways"
Writer: Rob Vollmar
Artist: Pablo Callejo
"Brent Morrigan"
Writer: S. Edward Irvin
Artist: Anders Eriksen
Letters: Todd Harker
Price: $2.99 US |
Absence of Ink is an anthology title, with all the good and bad that implies. Don and I reviewed the first issue a while back, and I must confess that I enjoyed that first issue a little it more than this one. There are a couple of strips here that don't appeal to me, and one that is borderline offensive in its mean-spirited nature. However, Absence of Ink Theatre gets by largely on the strength
of "Castaways," a period piece featuring a young man and an old man travelling
the rails during the turn of the century. Which is not to say that the rest of
the anthology is bad, it's just that a lot of it was not my cup of tea.
"Castaways" is easily the strongest piece in the book, however, and is almost a "worth the price of admission" strip by itself. Rob Vollmar tells a convincing story of an old man and a young boy travelling in an unconventional manner, and he maintains a sort of timeless style to the whole thing, although for some reason the strip evokes memories of O Brother, Where Art Thou? The artwork,
beautiful gray tone work from Pablo Callejo, is equally impressive, reminiscent
of Howard Cruse or Richard Corben. Whereas many of the contributors to this
anthology have a long road ahead of them, professionally speaking, Vollmar and
Callejo are pretty much ready for prime time.
The other strip that I really enjoyed was "Raven's End," a mystical samurai story with clear and simple artwork by Alessandro Scacchia. The work pales in comparison to samurai manga such as Vagabond, Blade of the Immortal and Lone Wolf & Cub, but Scacchia's vision of a
magically-influenced Japan is interesting nonetheless. The script, by Kevin
Gunstone, is a little over-the-top in its narration, but I like the ideas he's
putting forth.
Coming in at the other end of
the spectrum is "Bune's World," a needlessly graphic fantasy story that features
some interesting character interaction but suffers from the inclusion of nudity
and bloody violence that doesn't really seem germane to the story. At the core
of the story is a good idea, and there are some nice moments of character
interaction between Bune and the Lyad hunting party, but the story could use
more than a little polish.
Then there's "Gareth Axel," a
mean-spirited and unfunny attack on British writers that I really didn't enjoy.
If done with the right tone, this kind of thing can be amusing, but writer
Blakey's observations are off the mark anyway, and they seem geared less toward
being funny and more toward attacking a far more talented writer for no reason.
The artwork, by Davey, is also fairly rough, although in fairness they could
have had Callejo on this strip and I wouldn't have liked it any more.
This issue is completed with
a pair of single page stories, both of which are fine if relatively
unremarkable. In the end, I must say that I found a lot of the issue not to my
taste, but the inclusion of "Castaways" and some promising elements in "Bune's
World" and "Raven's End" make it worth a look, at least.
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