What I Bought 11/16/2018 - Part 2

Well, let's see if this book can make me stick around for issue 3. Although the fact it's actually managed to stay on schedule puts it a step ahead of like 6 other things I've tried buying this year.

Infinite Dark #2, by Ryan Cady (writer), Andrea Mutti (artist), K. Michael Russell (colorist), Troy Peteri (letterer) - The Security Director is really Slender Man. It's always the one you least suspect, assuming you'd even suspect Slender Man somehow made it onto a space station representing the last gasp of humanity.

The Security Director is struggling to process whatever she saw in the void last issue, and is refusing to tell anyone about it. The crew are kind of tense over one of them going nuts and killing someone, but the murderer's assistant offers to try and help decipher the symbols left on the wall. Which gives the Chief of Security time for therapy, which she doesn't want, but does let her in on the fact other people were exposed to the void and it's being kept secret. So that's good, although it doesn't necessarily answer what's happening.

It seems like there's supposed to be something actually out there. We could naturally question what exists in whatever space exists after a universe collapses or falls apart, whatever is happening here. But that also raises the question of what the hell their space station is existing in, since it's in the same boat. It could turn out every one of the people affected are just processing the experience in roughly the same way, and this is all in their mind. Seems odd they would all respond in roughly the same way, and I'm not sure why Deva would be so certain the shadow that appeared in her therapy sim was something more than just the simulation trying to represent what it's picking up from her mind.

I did enjoy the pixel effect for the surroundings in the simulation. You would think they'd have gotten past that kind of thing by the point in human history when this is taking place, but maybe not. Or it could represent the deteriorating state of the station, or Deva's mind, or the encroaching influence of whatever the thing she saw outside was.

Otherwise, I'm still not sure about Mutti's art. Times where expressions are stiff, or faces look strange, eyes too big for the head. Not in a cartoon effect way, just subtly out of proportion. Faces that are half in shadow, but I'm not sure what the intended effect is meant to be. Everyone is keeping secrets, for one reason or another. Deva in particular is trying to keep her mental turmoil under wraps so her bosses don't decide she's a liability. Even the parts of the ship that are supposed to be in use don't seem busy. You never seem to see more than 3 or 4 people in a place at one time. Could simply be because most of this is taking place in sections that are limited access, but it makes gives an impression the whole station is a ghost town. Doesn't really allow much of a contrast with the Dark Sector, other than we see structures from the outside there, so we see how they've fallen into disuse. But they're empty and silent, too, so not much difference.