Supernaturals Presents

A pulp noir world of supernatural forces, steampunk invention, and golden age heroism; Supernaturals Presents is an interconnected anthology of stories.

I'm a big fan of supernatural adventures like Hellboy and its spinoff BPRD, so this series intrigued me from the start.

I'll have to give the first issue a second read, but it covers a lot of ground. The writing is good, but I think the pacing could be a bit slower, especially for a story like this--you know, kind of slow burn to let the mood settle in. However, I can understand working within the constraints of X amount of pages, so any pacing issues may be simply a matter of fitting X amount of content into 30 pages. Similarly, although Leander is portrayed as particularly wicked, I never really got much of a sense of character. Again this is most certainly because it's only the first issue of a series. Overall, it was well written and intriguing so that I look forward to checking out future issues.

The art is fabulous. The art plays with light and dark beautifully, which is always something that I enjoy looking at. (I marvel at similar work in Mignola's Hellboy and Russo's work on 100 Bullets.) The ability to use simple black and white to show such detail and convey mood is something that not many artists can handle well, but it's handled very well in this comic. Plus many of the backgrounds and landscapes are beautiful. The artist has a very strong grasp of scenery and how best to portray it in stark black and white.

Perhaps it's because I like the art so much that I think that the lettering is a bit too big. Lettering and word bubbles look great, but I wish they were a bit smaller. The font size used would work for characters shouting, but I think it's too large for basic conversation. Also, the sound effects being in color is a bit distracting and looks a rather cartoony compared with the moody black-and-white art.

If I seem a bit harsh on this review, it's only because I really like what I've seen so far and would like to offer any criticism that would help improve the comic. Writing is good, concept is cool, art is beautiful, and I see lots of potential in this series--and look forward to reading more.

This comic really captures your attention. But honestly, not for long. I had to force myself to read until the most recent update. The beginning is very intriguing, but very confusing and with more text than art. The writing is great and the story is a unique one, but slow it down a bit while also putting dramatic, wordless pages to good use. The characters create the story really. They are so complex, but to be frank, I don’t love them. I look at this as a main point in any story or comic. If you don’t make the reader care for the character, then a lot of purpose to reading the comic is lost. Perhaps add more human emotion aside from such heavy ones as sadness and anger. On the other hand, the art is stunning. The images portrayed are so strong with emotion. The colors-which only happen to be black and white are used so gracefully to create beautiful imagery and strike up every feeling the character is going through. I also love the added touch of colored sound effects. Perhaps a better color than yellow would be red. This could just be by personal opinion, but it seems to be a more powerful color. Overall, great job! But there are some points of weakness.

I appreciate both your reviews, as this threads been sitting here for a month and previously hadn't gotten any attention.

I think Anne's right about slowing it down some. Some wordless and larger panels can build a mood better.

Art: Professional American comic book style. There's not much to say critique-wise, but I guess if I can say something the women and childrens' faces could be a little more cuter and/or attractive. That kid that the bear man saved from the cowboys looked kinda ugly in the first few pages she appeared in. The page with her riding the bear wasn't too bad.
The Scarlet Letter woman looked cool though.

Story: I caught on the bearman story quickly. It left me hanging at the end. We don't know how he died.

I didn't care for the Hawk. I wanted more of the bear story then all these other characters and story threw me off.

The Figment was good. I think that one's the best so far. It followed one protagonist so it was much easier to follow. I like how it's connecting back to the bear story.

I keep this short and sweet, yet again.

Artwork-
Wow, this looks legit, it reminds me of Frank Miller's work. 5/5, great, great work.

Everything else-
Can't say I'm huge on these types of comics, but it looks like it could be brought in by a company, so that automatically gets you 5 out of 5 right on the money for everything else.

To keep it fairly brief:

Art

The artwork is very strong and brings to mind comic artwork from Marvel and DC's silver age and film noir. However, it differs from them by showing lots of love for details. The backgrounds are nicely detailed throughout and go beyond the basic idea of just establishing where the scene is taking place.

Dialogue

The dialogue flows naturally but still serves the plot by provided necessary exposition and character development. Which brings me to my next point...

Characters

The characters seem to be in the process of developing to the extent that the plot requires them to. The villains all hark back to more innocent times when the audience didn't need to know about a villain's troubled childhood to know they were the bad guys, but the fact that they're evil is instead conveyed entirely by their actions and dialogue in the comic itself. Some of the protagonists don't seem to fit the old "boyscout" archetype, but they don't seem as corrupt and psychotic as other characters in similar genres (especially superheroes) can be.

Other thoughts

I personally find it interesting that each of the previously unrelated stories seem to be coming together into one larger plot as the comic goes on. However, since I feel that a good review should provide some constructive criticism, I'm going to have to nitpick to find anything negative. While many breaks from reality are certainly acceptable in fiction, especially speculative fiction, I would like to point out that anyone making millions of dollars at that time was completely unheard of. Royalty, perhaps, but a very rich entrepeneur would have made, at most, a few hundred thousand dollars every year. Again, this is the only thing I could really find to nitpick.