Savants #3
Savants #3 Source Point Press 2018 Created & Written by Gary Reed Illustrated by Seth DaMoose Coloured & Lettered by Sarah Dhyne In the third instalment of writer Gary Reed's very last story, Amy Berg explores the mysterious organization that has trapped her... as well as her own abilities, pushing herself to new limits. The opening for this issue is nicely done except for one thing. That lettering was making me crazy and the S’s in that script threw me off and overall I felt like I was getting a headache from all that cursive script. Don’t get me wrong Sarah did an excellent job with it but I seriously wanted to start skipping pages because of it. The story was one however that made me as a reader start to ask questions about both Rogurt and Ello and who their child was, though if it is who it points to then great if not then even better but we all have that feeling we know it’s Amy since she’s the focal point of the story. I do like the way that this is structured. Gary creates a wonderful ebb & flow to the story so that as we follow it through we are pretty much involved the entire way. I really am enjoying the way that this keeps coming together and how the story continues to really draw upon ideas that we’ve seen and thought of but never saw realised until now. There are plenty of times that we have seen the new modern family being born and while they do their darnedest to get Amy back she’s stuck at that institute where things are pretty much as they feared and we thought they’d be. Well based on descriptions and preconceived notions of course. I am also very much enjoying the characterisation that we are getting here. Gary really goes all out in making each of these characters as well rounded, okay well thought out, as possible and the end result is that we can see people for who they are. Motivations aside we get some extremely good and interesting looks at these people and how they are changing before our eyes. The situations they find themselves in and how they deal with them is just as good for the characterisation as their dialogue is and that is something I appreciate greatly. Seth keeps making more and more positive impressions with me through the work he’s doing on the interiors here. At first, I was thinking they were a little too all-ages for my tastes but the more he does the more we see the better it just becomes. From Rogurt and his sexy hairy body to the Ello’s exotic nature and then the individuality of the kids that make up Amy’s classmates all of it has this really great feel to it. The way that backgrounds are being utilised is nice and then to see the utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels, it all shows a really good, strong and solid eye for storytelling. Sarah’s colour work too while almost having that all-ages feel to it does a lovely job setting the mood, tone and feel of what’s going on at any given moment. The way that we see light sources being utilised to create shading and the difference in colours while not gradation are utilised in such a way that really allows for us to see how lived in the scenes are. Also I mentioned her lettering earlier and once we get away from that cursive the font for the rest of this is really nice to see. Savants has this crazy way of getting us into and involved in this strange scenario where the emergence of people with powers and to be controlled, studied and turned into assets the country wants to use. Honestly, I cannot wait to see the last two issues of this arc because if things keep going this way then I feel like this can only be the beginning of a franchise that will take the industry by storm.
