Saturday, May 18, 2024

Saturday Splash Page #125

 
"Aurora Borealis," in Station 16, by Hermann (writer/artist)

This isn't actually a full-page splash, as there were three other panels taking up the top quarter of the two pages, but it was the closest thing to it, and it's a cool image.

A Russian squad stationed in Novaya Zemlya receive a distress call from a weather station that has been abandoned for 50 years. Still, best to be sure. They helicopter in, and find an abandoned base. Then the aurora occurs, the helicopter vanishes, and the base is lit up and lively. Things go downhill in a hurry from there.

Hermann keeps the story focused on Grigory Grigorievich, the rookie on the squad. He's the one who hears the initial distress call, and when everything shifts, he's the one who finds a wounded man in a lab coat, who seems to recognize Grigory and accuses him of being a counter-revolutionary. Soon after, Grigory finds his sergeant, chained shirtless to a lightpost, and an unearthly blue that I think is meant for effect.

Oh, and he's missing his eyes. Lot of people missing eyes in this story.

Grigory is written as gradually going from uneasy to panicked. There's no planning or forethought, he just reacts as threats appear or recede. Shoot until the bullets are gone, run until he can't or there's nothing to run from. Though he does know the phrase, "spatiotemporal rift," so that's something.

Hermann uses a lot of small panels focused on Grigory's face, keeping him hemmed in. That's when he isn't using broad, short panels to remind us of the isolation. Whatever time he's in, Grigory is a long way from any help. The skips through time are erratic and unpredictable in duration and the amount of time lost. It doesn't always make sense - Grigory drops a scalpel under an operating table long after the base is abandoned, then finds it there when he is shunted back into the past a few pages later - but that adds to the disorientation for the reader and Grigory.

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