Pencils and cover: Alonso Molina
Inks and letters: Paulo Rivas
Publisher: Alterna Comics
Released: March 9th 2016
It's been a busy week or so for me, so to sit down with a new offering from Alterna Comics was a welcome relief. The fact that Ray Gun is brilliant was just the icing on the proverbial cake. Telling the story of Matthew Baker as he is sent to live with his father, this first issue sets up an interesting premise that leaves you curious as to what will happen next.
Of course in this issue there is a substantial amount of exposition, a first issue demands that you must set the scene and have your 'inciting incident', if done incorrectly, this can be slightly full. However Schoen has crafted the story in such a way that it doesn't suffer tedium, rather it is enthralling. Its paced well and each page has a hook to keep you turning them.
Though that isn't entirely because of the script, despite its excellence, but Molina's, frankly brilliant, artwork pops out of every page. His style seems to me to contain elements of manga, and that works really well. The characterisation is really strong and sequentially, there are practically no flaws. The panels flow smoothly and there is never any confusion about what comes next, or awkward reading. In fact some of the panels are the best laid out I've seen in a while, with some clever little tricks that made me smile.
Inkers don't often get mentioned I find, I've read some reviews that refuse to even acknowledge them, but Rivas's work here really accentuates the pencils and makes them stand right out.
Really this comic is a wonderful paradigm of symbiosis, or synchronicity that makes comics brilliant, each creator working in unison to make something special.
Ray Gun is a brilliant read, the story draws you in and the hint of a mystery reaching from the past has whet my appetite for the next issue. There should be no barrier to you going and getting this comic straight away, it's available on comixology right now, it's a wonderful example of indie publishing at its finest. I couldn't of enjoyed it more, not to fill the void until the next issue.
Thanks for the review! I'm the inker of Raygun, Paulo Rivas. There's been a mistake with my credits at the comixology page which has just been fixed, would you mind to change my credits here too, please? It's supposed to say Paulo Rivas, not Paulo López. Thanks a lot for your time!
ReplyDeleteSorry about that, all updated and should be shown correctly now. Thanks for reading.
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