Sunday, December 29, 2019

Sunday Splash Page #94

"Fleas on a Leviathan's Back" in Bonnie Lass #3, by Michael Mayne (writer/artist), Tyler Fluharty (writer)

A four-issue mini series about a very small crew of pirates getting tangled up in the search for an ancient bio-weapon. Which also puts them afoul of a mysterious organization after the same thing.

It's a cartoonish tone as Bonnie (who is the captain of her crew) is extremely reckless and cocky and prone to rushing headfirst into all kinds of problems without seeming to give it much thought. Her father was after this same thing once, and as she considers him a no-good bum of a pirate father, she's determined to find it and show him up. Spite is an excellent motivator.

Mayne's art fits the story, as it's loose and expressive. He can simplify it for effect when he needs to, draw a fight scene, get more detailed when the situation allows. Sometimes the coloring looks a little flat or muddied, but not to the degree it's distracting, and it might just be a result of the printing.

I get the feeling Mayne and Fluharty set the technological level of the world by what they need to keep the story going. So Bonnie's crew has a sailing craft, but they also have GPS. Which is fine. Everybody in-story treats this as perfectly normal, which is how it should be if you want the reader to go along with it. But I always end up thinking about it later.

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