Paklis #7 // Review
Amnia and Byznir have landed in the wrong universe. The rains seem constant. Mud is claiming everything, and there doesn't seem to be anyone else around. There doesn't seem to be any way off the ball of mud that they have come to find themselves on. Elsewhere it is 1949, and Detective Blank is having dreams of the future, which bleed into the now. It's not going to be an easy ending in Paklis #7. Writer/artist Dustin Weaver continues a dreamy nightmare of a series of serials that explore the nature of reality and identity. Things slide around in strange directions just as one story thread reaches its end.
Byznir might be able to find a way off the planet. There's a spacecraft that might be able to pull him out of the rain and the mud for long enough to save him, but will he be entering a completely different danger when he gets off the world? Detective Blank is dealing with her own issues in 1949 as her visions of the future seem to be fusing with her investigation. It doesn't make sense, but she IS feeling the draw of it all as everything begins to feel like an echo from the future.
The multiple layers of the stories seem to be smashed together in weird ways. And it's all fascinating and everything. It wouldn't be terribly engaging if it weren't for the fact that each of those stories within the issue seems to be drawn out of truly compelling emotion. There's a powerful draw to each of the characters in and within their restlessness that seems to reverberate out into the world beyond them. Weaver's narrative threads restlessly crawl over each other on the gradual path to the issue's final page. Everything Weaver is putting on the pages seems to bend in on itself somehow. It may feel more dreamy than coherent, but it has impressive gravity.
Weaver's art follows his script through multiple different, vertiginous perspectives that seem to be trying to catch the action off=guard and reveal some sort of truth about it. The layout is very dynamic as well. Various bits of imagery tilt in strange angles as one world moves into another. Weaver's worlds seem to warp around his characters as they all struggle with being trapped in distinctly different ways. It's deep, moody, and atmospheric while engaging quite fluidly with action and mystery.
Weaver's world moves around on the page with the depth that comes from a whole lot of a story that hasn't made it to the panels. There is a ridge depth to everything that makes it all feel firmly anchored into space. That seems more or less infinite. This is quite an accomplishment, given the fact that the series is only running for 10 issues so far. He's been working on it for a lot longer than that, though. The next issue we explore is a little bit of the prehistory of it all with an issue #0, which explores some of his earlier non-published work with the characters.
