Page 45 Review by Jonathan
"How long have you been hitchhiking like this?"
"Roughly three hundred years."
"Haha. Come on, for real, how long?"
"I'm not sure.
"I've been drifting for too long.
"Losing focus.
"I'm starting to think I'll never find the Source.
"Too many red herrings."
"The Source?"
"Whoever, or whatever gave me this curse."
"What curse?"
"Curse, gift. I'm not sure what it is anymore. After all these years, there's so little I know."
"You're making no sense at all now."
And that is only in chapter two of seven, of which six move our immortal itinerant, the forever roving titular highwayman, considerably forward in time. Substantially further than three hundred years I will say. One chapter, chapter six, is... different. There's also a temporally challenging epilogue too, but I'm reluctant to elaborate any further for fear of spoilers.
Am I making any sense at all now?
No?
Good.
For one of the dubious pleasures of following our deathless drifter, as he quests for the reason behind his peculiar ability to defy the Grim Reaper, is observing the gradual collapse of our Earthly civilisation. No, instead we witness the fall of humankind as society begins to crumble rapidly amidst global warming and the consequent natural catastrophes.
It is at all possible that we can adapt and survive these cataclysmic changes, or is humanity entirely doomed? Is the highwayman the only such being to be damned or blessed or are there others of his ilk also gallivanting around the globe? Will he ever find the Source?
Well... suffice to say the answers we do get are as shocking as they are surprising. Koren Shadmi (LOVE ADDICT, RISE OF THE DUNGEON MASTER: GARY GYGAX & THE CREATION OF D&D) turns his hand to produce a truly masterful work of intelligent dystopian science fiction that I found as satisfyingly and frustratingly mysterious as the SNOWPIERCER material.
Artistically Koren has gone for a much cleaner line than with LOVE ADDICT and also a simpler colour palette, opting to have one main different one for each chapter, in multiple shades, with some minimal contrasting colours as and when required. It's a clever combination of vibrant yet suitably bleak.
Fans of the likes of AAMA by Frederik Peeters, EAST OF WEST by Jonathan Hickman & Nick Dragotta will really enjoy this.
