This was an experimental one-shot Lonergan released through Image back in the fall of 2020, telling the story of an astronaut sent out to find some way to revitalize their world after it was destroyed by nuclear war. Lonergan starts with a 5x7 panel grid, then shifts that as necessary.
Sometimes several panels are combined to form a larger panel. Sometimes Lonergan leaves panels empty, as a reference point against the movement of the characters through the other panels. And, as in the page above, sometimes the how the action moves through the panels in a way meant to imply the landscape they depict.
I think the way he uses the panels to show movement in most interesting. There's one where the astronaut swings a sword, and the action is shown across the bottom row of the page. But the arc of the blade, which goes above the astronaut, is shown as a single white line against a dark backdrop on the two rows above it. I'm not sure it always works - there are times you have to jump around the page to follow the action in the order it's happening - but it wasn't something I remembered seeing before. So for novelty and creativity alone, I'm glad I read it.
2 comments:
That's a really nice page.
I think it sums up Alan Moore's point that comics aren't just ready made storyboards for movies - there are things you can do on a comic page (like the example here) that simply can't translate to another medium.
That's an excellent point. Comics aren't strictly prose, they aren't moving images on a screen, they're their own thing with their own quirk.
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