Page 45 Review by Stephen
Page 45 Comicbook Of The Month July 2024
Oh my god it's gorgeous. This is such perfect comics I could cry.
Highly recommended to fans of Taiyo Matsumoto's TEKKON KINKREET for its energy, youth, street clobber and pizazz, this dishes out some of the very best sequential-art storytelling I've seen in a very, very long time. By which I mean that the flow is silky-smooth fluid, each transition from one panel to another as sensually thrilling as fingers running up the nape of your neck.
Moreover, the EXTENDED trajectories - not just from one panel to the next but from a to b to c to d to e - are exquisitely mapped, like the smoothest, multidirectional screenswipes.
And these very much includes those panels positioned partly inside others: they could not be otherwise - the visual links would have been lost. Too often the province of fuck-awful superhero comics ("Yeah, if I shove that panel on top of those for a sensationalist splash it'll really stand out. Plus I won't have to draw their backgrounds. Won't make any storytelling sense, but fuck that thought / discipline / shit."), here these sliding, gliding panels are conducted - actually conducted - to form a full orchestration of movement which rises and falls, cascades and crescendos.
Also: best club scene I've seen in yonks. Love the flash of blackcurrant colour, those faces and hands! That and the choreography is all AGAIN with the KINKREET!
Also, also, whale sharks: this full-page encounter, viewed from above and dappled with light worthy of Satoshi Kon (specifically TROPIC OF THE SEA), is a wonder. I'd like to see 56% more whale sharks in comics, please, and 87% more wild wonders in total.
Heartfelt thanks to Drawn & Quarterly for giving a new home to this beacon of brilliance, this masterclass in truly visionary visual storytelling.
That's the way to do it.
The publisher writes:
Imbued with cyberpunk attitude and in the rebellious tradition of afrofuturism, GLEEM is drawn with a fierce momentum hurtling towards a future world. Carrasco's distinct cinematic style layers detailed panels and spreads, creating a multiplicity of perspectives, at once dizzying and hypnotic. Vignettes unspool in proximity to our own social realities and expand into the outer layers of possibility.
