#moth city

[the-gasp-at-the-gateway]

“The primary advantage of complete metamorphosis is eliminating competition between the young and old.”

[the-gasp-at-the-gateway]

07.11.17

Moment of honesty, the rate of time I’m experiencing scares me. I haven’t done so little for so long before, and I feel like I’m losing the pieces of me that were my core - artist, risk-taker, romantic.

You can’t unsee G̵̪͎͍̗̭̝ͪ͌̎͆̄̉ö̬͖̣̬́͐̍ͤ̋̓͞d͔̂́̊ͫ'͒̋͋ͥͩ͊s̵͎̒͆̆̂̂ ͦS͖͔̺h̙̆̊͑͘aͧ̿̌̅d̝͔̽͊̑͛oͯ̽̓ͦ̐ͭ̿wͣ͊̽, and seeing it casts everything before it so shallow. The veneer of Moth City corroded, and like wrinkles sprang upon its face the realities of capitalism, and following it the dawning horror of my Imperialist nation.  Whatever world that devilish, city-bound artist girl inhabited, can never again be, right? And yet she is my core and cannot perish into irrelevance, not without wounding me.

I found a name for what I hungered, all those years. It was a love for people with monsters inside them, and I still have it. People who shape the world and are not pressed into submission. It burns in me like atomic radiation, and I don’t know how to escape this couch-lock, because I struggle to remember days, and when I stand I feel like collapsing

So I must be mindful. And use this period of uncertainty for magic. And do I float, or beckon Hell inside me?

[the-gasp-at-the-gateway]

02.04.17

get fucked up in Seattle hey

[plasma-pop]

moths for my pals

[cynicmindsworldwide]

up with the moths

[the-gasp-at-the-gateway]

12.04.15

focus, a single purpose is me. for 30 days I live, eat, and shit code. until I count the lines in my sleep, and treat semi-colons like periods and become fluent will you watch me transform again, again? This is my next trick

[dave-gillette]

Review: Faction Comics Anthology 1-3

Having recently received Faction’s anthology set, I was eager to dive into a different set of voices from what I’m accustomed to here in the states.

While there was unevenness in the quality of storytelling, at its best moments the Faction anthologies rate favorably. Volume One’s most engaging read was Damon Keen’s One Giant Leap.

Keen has the gift of being able to tell a story visually that can stand on its own. It’s hard not to appreciate when a comic artist attempts to scale the same heights as Moebius when it comes to the wordless comic book tale.

I found One Giant Leap to have astounding clarity in narrative while accomplishing a lot in a short breadth of space. Keen’s sardonic sense of humor takes a rather bleak tale and injects the right amount of humor at the right time to make it a memorable read.

Volume Two’s Awakening, by Allan Xia, also manages to develop a strong narrative without words. Set in a future that feels slightly influenced by The Matrix and Mad Max, there’s a simple element that effectively conveys what remains important in the darkest of times - love.

Xia’s art is beautifully rendered with a painterly feel that adds to the gravitas of the plot while showcasing his deft touch in even-handed subtext. Awakening was a story that I read a few times to appreciate its nuances.

Volume Three’s standout is something that I’ve already reviewed, but couldn’t resist mentioning again – Tim Gibson’s Moth City prequel The Reservoir.

This is a flashback story, telling the origin story of Governor McCaw and his daughter in a land and time well before the present day conflict of Moth City.

There is an epic feel to the narration and imagery in this story that really impressed me, and left me with a lot to consider. Gibson, a fantastic artist and visual storyteller, leaves no doubt that he equally adept at writing.

I opined these particular points in my long-form review of The Reservoir a few months ago, so it was a pleasure to see it contained within this anthology. Reading it on paper made for a different experience, which my tactile needs for something in my hands appreciated.

If you’re looking for different storytelling methods, Faction’s anthologies one through three should help you get out of the humdrum of conventional comic book formats and into something off the beaten path.

Rating – 4 out of 5 Stars

[dave-gillette]

Review: The Reservoir by Tim Gibson

Tim Gibson, the powerhouse talent behind Moth City, takes a different path by going backwards with his latest work The Reservoir: A Western in Black, White, and Blood.

This is a flashback story, telling the origin  story of Governor McCaw and his daughter in a land and time well before the present day conflict of Moth City.

Gibson takes a unique approach to the narrative by telling his story exclusively through narrative and images; it's almost like a silent film. I found this reminiscent of a movie trailer from the golden era of Hollywood.

The interesting features of the Thrillbent digital format, which Gibson uses with amazing facility, give it a semi-animated feel of the movie reel. I felt like I needed to have a popcorn and soda to full appreciate the experience.

However, that simply describes the feel of this story from an experiential standpoint. Mentally, I found The Reservoir to engage me as a reader much more tightly by making my mind have to sync the captions with the images.

Governor McCaw is a man of action. That's all you need to tell a good story about him. Everything is there in The Reservoir that you need to know about what kind of man he was and why he is who he is.

There is an epic feel to the narration and imagery in this story that really impressed me, and left me with a lot to consider. Gibson, a fantastic artist and visual storyteller, leaves no doubt that he equally adept at writing.

He cracks open some interesting ideas about the nature of man and ambition without being didactic. Instead, there are insights that leave you thinking about this story for a good while.

Whether it's ideas about family in a Cain and Abel sense, fidelity, or wraith, Gibson covers these ideas gracefully with the smooth flow of the story and outstanding imagery.

I highly recommend this prequel to Moth City. The Reservoir is another fantastic read from Gibson. Buy it here from comiXology.

4.5 out of 5 Stars