What I Bought 9/1/2017

September is not going to be a great month for new comics. I'm planning to buy about 6 new comics this entire month. Maybe 7, since one book I was expecting in August hasn't come out yet. At least October will be a little better. Anyway, here's a book from last month.

Wynonna Earp Season Zero #2, by Beau Smith and Tim Rozon (writer), Angel Hernandez (artist), Jay Fotos (colorist), Christa Miesner (letterer) - All of Wynonna's old friends have lost their eyes. Or are going really heavy on the eye black.

After Wynonna's big speech about doing things with her family rather than trying to cut them out, she sneaks off in the middle of the night, with Holliday's assistance. Which leads to fighting between he and Agent Dolls. Everyone decides to chase after her, as Wynonna reaches her friends at an old fort, as the Alpha X forces of augmented soldiers close in. A little more is revealed about them, although not what the thing Wynonna has a key for is, or why it's important.

Smith and Rozon are trying to walk the tightrope, revealing some of the backstory a little at a time, while moving the present-day story forward. I'm not sure it's quite working, but points for effort at least. There is this repeated theme of Holliday understanding Wynonna better than everyone else, or at least Doc insists that's the case. I'd be curious whether the series is going to confirm that, or blow it to Hell. But he makes the same basic statement to or three times, once to Dolls while Wynonna's sister Waverly is present, and then later to Waverly directly. Which felt unnecessary, like the whole conversation was filler. Just passing time while getting from one location to another.

The fight between Dolls and Holliday was OK, had that definite sense of being about more than what had actually triggered the fight. The style of the sound effects seems at odds with Hernandez' art, though. There's a certain cartoonish aspect to a "WHOOOOSH" that follows Holliday as he's thrown across the room, but Hernandez' art isn't really of a similar style. There's a lot of focus on small lines and hatching on faces, scowls and shadows, a stiffness to things. The sound effects don't really match that.

For that matter, there's these added effects to show movement, usually a white arc tracking the movement of the object in question. But it's very obviously added in on top of the art after the fact, so it doesn't feel as though it's part of the art. Like if I bought a book of bunny stickers and put a damn rainbow on top of one of the panels.