Thank you Dark Horse for actually having this be interesting. It was an honest to go page-turner. The plot is so well paced that even in the slower parts where they are doing nothing more than introducing two slightly irrelevant characters it still keeps in pace with the action. None of the dialogue is stale, stiff or lame. In the beginning of this issue there is a snake beasty-thing that is kind of awesome even while eating the head off a guy. I hope this character comes back just for the sole purpose that his little monologues are beautifully written. I won’t lie it’s not sweet poetry that ensnares the heart and enthralls the mind but it really gets your juices going for the big baddie. Also have a soft spot for well spoken, cryptic as hell monsters.
The only downfall here is that all the other spoken roles are well thought out even the blonde at the end that wants to eat their hearts but we have another cardboard main character. We see it all the time Dylan Dog, Nick from Grimm and for a while Peter Parker (thank the dark side gnome for Ultimates.) Frankly I’m sick of the cardboard brooding males. Robert, the main character in Occultist, is a cardboard cut out. I’ll give him a bit of credit, he has a pint sized store keeper haunting his thoughts with cheer and wisdom as well as having a girlfriend that use to step out on him. That problem was fixed with a bit of magic now she won’t leave his knob along. Also he just has some supernatural entity taking over his thoughts resulting in a giant identity crisis. No biggie. By the way this information right here isn’t present in issue one. You’ll find it in the one-shot that was done in 2010. So all in all the main character is just an Edward Cullen cardboard cut out that can move. My hope is that with all the badass-ness that seems to follow him around it’ll rub off on him.
You honestly don’t have to read the one-shot. I recommend it since I actually enjoyed it as well but they do a good job at hinting and briefly explaining it all.
The comic also ends in the middle of a fight scene. How cheap but boy does it freakin’ work! This is one of the cheapest ploys to ever be used by a writer- not going to lie I’ve done in it my novels- starting with Tolkien who didn’t have a say but still. If it worked for the great man of godliness himself than it shall be over used! Like Elves. Does anyone remember when Elves were big? Now we have vampires. Great downgrade. Anyways completely off topic but let’s sum it all up: Author used a cheap tactic, it sodding worked and now I want the next one right now! And the third one after that! Piece of info I forgot to mention is it’s only a three parter which means one of two things. I will want to kill the authors in another two months or will walk around for an hour hugging it like I did to that Star Trek memorabilia book at Barnes and Noble last night…
And moving on! So my last point about the Occultist is the art. It was fine, a lot better than some but the problem with it was that fact that they over shadowed everything. You know those creepy computerized ‘drawings’ of people’s faces? Some of the close ups looked like that. Chill on the shadowing. It’s a comic it can look not so creepily like real life. We’ll love you even more if it’s not. There’s one face on page 9- bottom right- that does it the worst. I shudder at the creepster.
Occultist: Great read. Definitely a good buy especially since it’s only a three parter which means it won’t hurt the wallet terribly. 4 out of 5 since it goes the distance but there is aways room for impovement or a main character with a personality.
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