Friday, October 07, 2022

What I Bought 10/30/2022 - Part 2

Well, great. I can't get images to load properly in these posts. It was working fine Tuesday when I typed up Wednesday's post, but last night, I could upload from my computer, I could select, but it would not put the images in the freaking post. I got them in by switching to HTML mode, but now the spacing is wonky. Although I fiddled with an upcoming Saturday Splash Page and it looks like I can just drag and drop from my computer into the window, so maybe I'll go with that if this problem persists.

Blink #3, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Hayden Sherman (artist), Nick Filardi (colorist), Frank Cvetkovic (letterer) - The plumbing in that place must be a nightmare, assuming anything bothers to use toilets any longer.

Wren is rescued by a bunch of whispery people wrapped up in tinfoil calling themselves "the static." They will give Wren answers, if she follows them, so for lack of any better options (unless being killed by the monster-things is something you consider better) she follows. This quickly turns into a flight for life from the monsters, which Sherman draws as a twisting, topsy-turvy flight through narrow hallways that stretch forever above Wren.

And I mean, twisting. The first page starts with a panel in the upper left, and then the panels fall in an arc across the page, seeming to rotate as they do. By the last panel in the arc, you've turned the book on its side, and you could be at the start once more, but a different start. And this sort of thing recurs across six pages. The panels overlap, and at times, it almost seems like you could choose one of two different paths to take that would represent her panicked scramble for safety. At the end, the panels tilt once more so that you're holding the book as you normally would. It's very effective at creating disorientation and the sense of finding it hard to interpret all the information when there's a stressful situation.

Wren was nearly captured, but saved by the monster she sees in her dreams. Which looks like most of the others, but she's sure she recognizes it. Then comes the information, displayed through a bunch of panels presented like closed-circuit camera footage. That, when the people who agreed to take part were told they wouldn't be released as promised, some people tried to take away the cameras to force a response. Others chose to defend them cameras, and there was fighting and death. The ones protecting the cameras gradually became monsters, and took the dead to make them into monsters as well. The resistance decided their only protection was to hide their identities. If they couldn't be distinguished, the one watching couldn't track numbers or tell what they were up to. From what they say, it doesn't sound like that's been particularly successful.

Wren's parents got her out, the only escapee, and so the static are convinced she's the only one who can get them out. To do that, she has to confront the source, the one behind all this, and kill him. Except the source, or some sort of staticky ghost thing is watching all this, which doesn't bode well for her success.

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