Comic Review: The Picture of Everything Else #2

The Picture of Everything Else #2

Vault Comics

Writer: Dan Watters

Art: Kishore Mohan & Aditya Bidikar

Having been introduced to the world of fine arts by the same person that introduced me to comics, I was very excited once I came across this new Vault series. A story involving two old friends, sinister magic, painting, and 20th century Paris. We’re in for a ride.

This issue picks up around three years after the events of issue #1 when Alphonse decided to tag along with the Englishman, Basil Hallward, and learn his wicked ways. Marcel has given up painting his own ideas and has, instead, adopted the career of a critic. Right away he is met by an angry and young Pablo Picasso who holds Marcel on gunpoint because of a bad review. The situation is contained by Madame Verniere who compliments Picasso’s work and sends him home. Verniere and Marcel are the only ones who know of the power and evil behind Basil Hallward since the night he killed the Dupree twins. On the next day, Marcel meets Alphonse, now back in Paris and commenting on his work with the Englishman as if it was the most common of things. Alphonse instigates his own friend’s curiosity about how Basil does what he does and then invites him to join them.

Watters is already one of my favorite comic book storytellers and I’ve already read two of his comics. Albeit those two being very different from one another, this shows spectacular range and mastery of the art. The highlights for this issue were the more introspective moments. We get a lot of dialogue and regular story progression but we also get a few panels inside Basil’s head while he paints, once every 10 pages or so. These moments amount to a spine-tingling ending exploring the true capacity of Hallward’s power.

Kishore Mohan is responsible for both the lines and the colors in the series. The line art gets the job done. The backgrounds on every panel are incredible. The wider scenes are a banquet to the eyes since the style relates very closely to the painting being the perfect approach for this story. The coloring is to die for. There is a particular panel where we know the characters are against a window just by the ray of light we can see reaching them, it’s truly gorgeous work. Aditya Bidikar’s work is, as always, great. Not many sound effects or screaming but I like the light italic he used for Basil’s reflections as well as the cursive to represent Marcel’s final letter to his partner.

Although the story has yet to properly take off it is undeniable that The Picture of Everything Else is the composition of many talents that perfectly fit together. As I mentioned before, this comic will be a heck of a ride and I look forward to seeing just how far things will escalate.

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