They say there are no new Ideas.
I'm not quite sure who THEY are but if you see them make sure to smack them upside the head from me.
There is a new Comic out, published by Wildstorm, called Manifest Eternity which is not only brilliant, but also beautiful and based on the best new idea I've heard in a good long time:
Fantasy Universe goes to war with Sci-fi Universe.
That's it. How great is that? Mordor launching a sneak attack on the Federation, Oz invades Star Wars, World Of Warcraft Vs Starcraft, whatever, it's in there.
With such a great start I could easily see the material letting down the premise but, thankfully, it doesn't... it props it up more and adds the kind of beauty and intelligence which should probably be making lesser creators cry.
The Art is solely credited to Dustin Nguyen and possesses an unearthly beauty which is perfect for the setting. Colour washes the background while he uses (I think) Computer effects to generate laser blasts and holograms. Most of the art has a dreamlike quality, which makes sense as the combatants each exist on a plane which is neigh unfathomable to the other. Occasionally the ambient looseness of his art begins to compress into some of the tightest action sequences imaginable. Taken as a whole Manifest Eternity looks quite unlike anything else I can think of outside of perhaps the weird fusion of a Chris Bachalo's stylized kineticism and Yoshitaka Amano's ornate beauty.
The writing also pops. In issue #3 the 8 year old captain of the Sci-Fi armada comments that laser blasts have no effect on the enemy's ships (gigantic zombie dragons) so they have learned to jettison booby-trapped raw turkeys in the paths of the beasts, which they will consume and thereby be killed. That kind of bizarre attention to detail is par for the series so far. Also each issue is a stand-alone Done-in-one which not only manages to tell a compelling story but manages to slowly reveal more information about the overall conflict as well as give context for how each issue fits into that whole.
Manifest Eternity is brilliant, beautiful and original. I want to read 500 issues of it. I want to play the computer and Xbox360 games of it. I want to buy the action figure and watch the Saturday Morning Cartoon... but first you all need to get out there and start buying it, if it gets canceled I'm coming after all of you so watch out.
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2 comments:
I'll definitely pick this up. Thanks for convincing me.
Your Friendly Neigborhood,
FlintLockjaw
From one Manifest Eternity fan to another I understand exactly what you are saying. I would love to get in touch with the writer Scott Lobdell and ask him what the chances are of releasing this anywhere else. It felt like all we saw was a tiny piece of a huge story he had planned. This could have been epic, it could have been amazing and instead it was canceled. I am just glad that someone with a better grasp of the English language than I was able to explain this book so well.
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