So the next time you are perusing the latest releases at your local comic book shop and cannot find a copy of Prophet issue 21, immediately turn around, look the guy behind the counter in the eye and yell “Give us John Prophet!” with all the dramatic emphasis of Djimon Housou’s performance in Amistad. If your comic book guy seems nonplussed, or thinks you are the demon Legion (look it up,it’s in The Bible Luke 8:26-39), run over and grab the laptop he undoubtedly has (looking over the latest comic news from your pals at FIG), go to the Image Comics website, find the January solicitations for Prophet and point at it whilst giving him your best Cro-Magnon man grunt. At this point he will instinctively understand the display and reply, “Oh yeah, I’ll add it to your pull list.”
All hyperbole aside, I have not been this excited by a new non-superhero comic in quite some time. I know absolutely nothing about the original Prophet series created by Rob Liefeld and drawn by Dan Panosian, and guess what, I don’t care. I mean look at the original character design.
But this comic coming from a creative team I know next to nothing about,Brandon Graham writes, Simon Roy draws and Richard Ballermann colors, is as they say, “funny book heaven.” The basic plot advertised by Image goes like this, “The distant future Earth is inhabited by alien settlers that feed off the ape-men mankind has devolved into. John Prophet awakes from cryosleep on a mission to restart the human empire.” I apologize for Image’s non-gender inclusive language. But if that summation makes you yawn then let me convince you a little further.
I am a big fan of comic stories that tell you everything you need to know about a character visually, and Prophet is a visual feast. Although I didn’t write the previous sentence with a lot of John Prophet’s actions in mind, I will say that it was a happy accident that I used the descriptor “feast.” The story begins with a six-legged, tri-mouthed wolf like creature foraging for food. Suddenly an earth-boring capsule emerges near its feet and out falls a haggard looking individual. The text reads “John Prophet emerges.” John proceeds to puke up an ampoule which he jabs into his arm to wake up his nervous system. Throwing caution to the wind, the hungry animal leaps upon its newly found meal. Unfortunately for this beast,John Prophet makes mince-meat of it with his trusty knife and proceeds to eat. And therein lay much of John’s adventures throughout this issue: walking around and eating meat. Lots of meat. He even eats the meat of his devolved ape-kin without any remorse once he comes across a harvesting plant run by the aliens who have taken over the planet.
But if that were all Prophet encompassed it would be little more than an episode of Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls. No, what is found within these 24 pages is a fantastic marriage between deliberate visual storytelling, terse and effective narration, and unbridled imagination. The comic features plenty of great ideas for the aliens. They are somewhat ant-like in hierarchy: workers, soldiers, breeders and a yet unseen “higher caste.” I couldn’t help but love that John can easily walk among these creatures because they are a“smell based caste society.” All he has to do is wear one of their pelts around his shoulders and he becomes practically invisible. I’ll leave the hows and whys of John’s mission for you to read, but suffice it to say, John has a long road ahead of him if humans are to reclaim their planet. Oh, and he sees visions through his “dream mind” which makes his last name, wait for it, prophetic!
Finally, a word about the creative team. My first impression of the storytelling style reminded me of manga. A quiet, taciturn man possessing great skill sets out on a mission of mysterious circumstance, all the while displaying a somewhat bemused and unaffected attitude toward his incredible surroundings. So it didn’t surprise me when I learned that writer Brandon Graham’s claim to fame is the now defunct TOKYOPOP manga series King City: Cat Master. If the main character of that series is not named Tybalt I will be severely disappointed (Shakespearean joke provided by my lovely wife). In any case, that soon-to-be reprinted collection by Image is on my list after a single issue of Prophet. The art also has its share of manga-like influences coming from the pencil of Simon Roy. But don’t worry, this isn’t big googly-eyes and preposterous facial expressions. Think more along the lines of Hayao Miyazaki or Katsuhiro Otomo. The colors ain’t too shabby either. All in all, I give the highest recommendation for this new beginning for an old Liefeld Image creation. Get it now, first printings may already be sold out!
No comments:
Post a Comment