Commentary: Graphic Novel Chapter 119, “Under The Bridge - Part 1″

Finally, I am rewarded for my patience with 1) a favoured GN writer, Harison Wilcox, who has written the Kill Squad series, War Buddies 5, Molly’s Dream, and Super Heroics (peter the superhero/villain) 2) an artist, Dennis Calero, who although never having drawn a GN seems to have a realistic drawing style that both reminds me of Jason Badower’s ability to capture the show characters and yet is different in a much darker style that matches the current story line of Nathan and 3) A story which we can directly identify as a bridge from volume 3 to volume 4. I have two complaints however minor they may be. First, it is difficult to follow the two perspectives and two, I hate story lines that dont resolve and I have to wait at least a week to find out the next step.

Regardless, I enjoyed this comic. The art completely captures the character dichotomy between criminal who thinks he is innocent and guard who just determined he wasted his life and seems close to suicidal. It took me several readings to determine who was speaking and who were the characters but once I grasped it, I realized how brilliant Wilcox and Calero wove it together. I am not quite certain whether Perrin is a porcupine or a tree man but I lean toward the former. Nor do I have any clue what Donald’s power is. Is he a smoke man who can turn himself into smoke and get out of tight places as you could interpret from page 6, or is he invulnerable as the line “I was meant to survive” and “god made me like this” might allude to. I also do not know what happened to Perrin. Did he kill himself, did Donald explode and kill him, or kill him other ways? Did he escape unbenownst to Donald?

This novel expertly leaves as many questions as it answers and leaves quite a bit open for speculation. To some, this could signify that the writer and artist did not succeed in selling the story accurately to the reader. However, I am optimistic and I prefer to see it as the writer and artist did exactly what they were supposed to do and we are meant to speculate until part two comes out next week.

Till then, we wait some more.