Comics! Clone #1

Clone #1 

David Schulner: writer
Juan Jose Ryp: Artist

The Solicitation
From ROBERT KIRKMAN's Skybound imprint, comes a sci-fi story like you've never seen before! Dr. Luke Taylor's perfect life comes to a dramatic halt when an identical, bloodied version of himself arrives at his doorstep with news that he is one of many clones... and they're all after his pregnant wife and their unborn child!

Preview

Why I Bought It
The previews for the book were in the back of some recent Image books and it looked interesting. Let's see what it has for a full first issue.

What I Liked
An interesting start.

This is the first book ever done by Schulner, and you can see some rookie mistakes where he will be cutting his teeth over the next bit for the book. Words are very scarce when we need something a little more. Instead, the art is left to develop the story. It s a nice one-two combo that shows that there is some talent there, but as the reader you are going to be required to walk through the steps with the creators.

Ryp's art in the book is pretty good. There are a lot of medium and close up shots that are designed to bring you in, but the lack of some establishing shots make me wonder if something with a wider shot can be done with the work. We only had one page in the story that was a full page (not that there is anything wrong with that) with the characters taking up half the space and little left for the background and the blood covered floor. The action scenes also felt a little off. They were drawn beautifully, but they were badly choreographed.

What I Didn't Like
I don't like it when a book opens with a first person narration and then never goes back to it. Seriously, the only non-dialogue information given in the book is in the opening and you can't be too sure of who is supposed to be saying it. And it isn't until near the end of the book that we start to have multiple characters talk in a single panel, which is where it felt to me that room was left for the artist to do his thing.

When I finished the book, I just felt like I learned nothing new about the story that I couldn't get from the preview pages. The book had a very decompressed feel to it when I think that it needed to have a little more bang to it. Yes, some action happened in it, but I still don't know much about the main character and why I should be into finding out more about why we should care that he is a clone. With the decompressed feel to the book, I wonder if this might be something that will be better to read in a trade.

Panel to Remember
I'm going with the very last one of the book. I get that the idea is that he supposed to be shocked, but was the only thing you can do artistically was give him the same look that he has had pretty much throughout the comic with a background that isn't as detailed as previous panels? It just felt like something a little more could have gone there.

Quotable
"It's over, my brother." - When the character delivers a line like that in a book that we know is about clones then I would say it would be OK to reveal his face in the next panel. But we don't get that. So the character who said this line will be called the Faceless Clone.

Grades
Words: 6/10
Pictures: 7/10
Buy Next Issue: I had higher hopes for this book. Considering the vibe I'm getting from this first issue, I think it may be best to trade wait or get the collection as a digital comic.