Nathan Sorry Vol. 1

This last week has felt like a bit of a return to form for me, though not in a good way. After the immense number of comics I burned through last week, this week has felt more like the week before in that I haven't read very much at all.

Of course, that isn't down to lack of time or laziness on my part, it's simply a thing that this week has been predominantly focused on a review of a rather large (and, in my opinion, rather good) comic to go on the Pipedream site (more on that later).

However, I have found the time to not only read a comic, but buy it too (it was on sale on Comixology and even with the amount I have to read, sometimes I can't resist).

Nathan Sorry Vol. 1 tells the story of a unremarkable, unassuming guy who finds himself assumed dead when his place of work is lost during 9/11, but he's not there when he should be. Now, holding his boss' laptop which contains a fake identity and access to $20 million, Nathan goes into hiding as 'James Goode' as he awaits for things to die down so he can flee the country. However, as he isolates himself to avoid being found out, Nathan starts to question who he really is.

I can't remember where I had originally heard of Nathan Sorry (I'm not entirely sure it was something I just 'stumbled' upon), but when I read the synopsis (which I feel I may have adequately butchered just now), I found this to be an intriguing idea. Unfortunately, while the idea was something I liked, the story was a little bit more of a struggle. I enjoyed the idea of this man stumbling across a 'fake' life and the opportunity of a fresh start, but the way it came about felt to me to be a bit too generic. Not that it wasn't badly set up as the beats to get Nathan from where he started to where he wound up seemed to all be there. It was just that the change and rationale behind going this route seemed a little too abrupt.

I do wonder to myself after reading it if greater emphasis was needed on Nathan's past life to explain why he made the decision to 'run'. This issue showed us a bit of poor treatment in his job but a job isn't the 'be all and end all' and so, while reference to money troubles is implied, maybe a bad break up or run down apartment would have helped sell it. Also, the same could be said about his breakdown (wherin he believed he was James Goode), where more could have been done to hint that Goode was real and Sorry was really dead (beyond a abitruary).

That said, it did have some good points, the art especially I really liked with it's different looks and the black, grey and white colour scheme making it feel unique. However, overall, this was an ok read that almost borders on not my thing. I am intrigued about a few things within the story; the fate of the Russian girl, the investigator, Casey's role in the story. But, while there is a second volume to this title, I might go to the website rather than Comixology for it.

If and when I get around to it.

Oh, and before I forget ...

So I said at the beginning that most of my week was taken up by a review and that was for the TKO OGN, Djeliya by Juni Ba. Now I don't know what I can say that builds on what you would find in the review proper but, suffice to say, I absolutely loved this book! I thught that Djeliya had such an inspiring element to it as I progressed through the story, thatt I couldn't do anything but be hooked from the very beginning. Now, It isn't perfect as I will admit that I  couldn't for the life of me describe any scene in it without difficulty. However, that doesn't take away from the sheer enjoyment and fist pumping enthusiam I have for it.

Of course, while I've said in the review about how I've never seen comic art like this before (and I certainly dont recall one), what it does make me think of is a trippy spirit walk type thing (or a similarly focused episode of the 2003 Clone Wars mini-series). Nonetheless, I still thought it really worked here and helped give Djeliya a really unique visual style.

When Pipedream Comics was given the opportunity to review this I had expected good things (because I have a lot of respect for most of TKO's offerings) but, I must say, I didn't expect it to be this good. This is something I'd highly recommend and am going to need to find a way to get a copy for my shelf.

Now, both these comics weren't the only things I read this last week because I just remembered that I read Spider-Man: Spider's Shadow #2 at the beginning of the week. This was another comic that I really like as I thought that it built on the first issue in spectacular fashion and continued to delve deeper into this horror type story thanks in no small part to its art (the cover alone looks tremendous and is worth the price of admission IMO). I'm not going to go into it in depth here because A. I couldn't think of too much to talk about and B. I want to ramble about the whole series when I've read it all, but if the next two issues build upon this then I will be in for a treat.

So, all in all, it's been a good week, comic reading wise, with two out of three winners, not to mention getting some work done on a couple of projects (one new and one outstanding) as well as plenty of praise for my Ejeliya review coming from today's release of it.

And it has me pumped for next week. With some exciting looking titles on the review list (or in the process of gaining) and the first issue of Fantastic Four: Life Story picked up and ready to read (not to mention all the other outstanding comics), I can only hope that the number of issues I read goes back to a last week sort of number.