Comic Review: The Clock #1

The Clock #1

Image Comics

Writer: Matt Hawkins

Art: Colleen Doran & Bryan Valenza

Top Cow‘s new series approaches what might happen if a new viral type of cancer began to spread across the entire planet threatening an extreme sudden drop in world population. Sadly the first issue is a bit confusing and ill paced.

The first chapter kicks off with the protagonist, Jack, a cancer researcher, in a field mission somewhere in Nigeria with the objective of understanding why this specific village hasn’t yet suffered from the new type of cancer he’s studying. The village is suddenly attacked and Jack, along with his father (who is an ambassador) and other colleagues fight the rebels off. The comic then cuts back to Washington D.C. where Jack’s wife has just passed from the same disease he’s trying to understand and is now left to raise his daughter alone.

This first iteration was not a great start for this series. The comic feels like it was composed in two different manners. In the first half of it, the writer and the artist appeared to be completely off-sync. The pace is completely rushed, jamming information without the proper introduction or detail and then, out of the blue, the Nigerian village is attacked and saved and… that’s it? What came to be of that situation remains unclear for the rest of the book. The second is the exact opposite. writer and artist compose harmonically to create some powerful panels which deserve the recognition for bringing the gravity of the situation portrayed in the plot of the comic.

Colleen Doran’s style may not be for my taste. The artist’s realistic approach made most of the panels feel extremely rigid and static even in the action scenes. Not to mention the facial expressions which feel cold and forced. This issue’s backgrounds are nothing to be much impressed about either. They contain a lot of detailing lines but only to define folds or wrinkles in cloths while the characters in the scene appear drawn rather simply. I believe the same problem which existed between the writer and the artist in the first half of the comic, also afflicted the artist and the colorist, Bryan Valenza. The colors evidently try to bring life to backgrounds and character but everything remains looking still and dull, unfortunately.

The Clock presented an incredibly interesting plot which although sadly it started with poor execution in its first chapter. There is, as I mentioned before, obvious potential, and I sincerely hope that the quality picks up in future issues.