Rat City #9 // Review
It’s Brazil. It’s 2097. A church. A man is confessing to a priest who doesn’t speak English. Nevertheless, he DOES need a chance to work things out and try to get right with some higher power. It’s been way too long wince his last confession, but he’s trying to turn things around in Rat City #9. Writer Erica Schultz continues her story as brought to page and panel by Zé Carlos. Color comes to the page courtesy of Jay David Ramos. Having circulated around some pretty well-trodden cyberpunk territory in past issues, Schultz finds an interesting cocktail of different sci-fi/fantasy and philosophical territory in her latest issue.
The cigar-chomping commander arrives. He’s not happy. They’re under a tight schedule. There’s no time for superstitious nonsense. Naturally he’s going to yell at the soldier. Move ahead to the present time and hell is being unleashed on a room full of people who are in no way prepared to handle what it is that they’re facing. When you’re a soldier, oyur conscience has to catch-up with the reality of what you’re doing. What’s going on in the room is something that would take nearly anyone a deal of time to fully digest.
Schultz’s mix of horror/fantasy and cyberpunk flavors reaches a particularly clever point as the series continues. Schultz’s story feels a bit strange in places, but the larger picture of her plot begins to come into view in a ninth issue that makes it feel all the more distinct and original. The series benefits from the larger picture quite a bit. It can be difficult to get a coherent view of things, but Schuiltz provides an interesting semantic vantage point with which to view the full emotional dynamic of the series.
Carlos and Ramos delicately amplify action and drama without making it all look ridiculous. Given the events that Schukltz is having them illustrate, that really is one hell of an accomplishment. There’s a sharp reality about it all that seems to make sense in context even as all hell is released on a squad of soldiers with ridiculously ampllified tech. And then there are some very serious moments like the one with the soldier in the confessional...very serious stuff that’s handled with a clever nuance. Ramos’ color lends a great deal of intensity to the drama and a sharp resonance to the helfire of the dark fantasy visuals.
It’s nice to see the framing of Schultz’s story pull back far enoguh to see the bigger picture a little bit more from the right kind of angle to get a better idea of what it is rthat she’s doing. It’s really, really sharp stuff throughout. If Schultz and comapny can maintain the momentum of things moving forward it’s going to be an inmpressive sort of action that’s going to be moving through the series. It’s taken a while for Schultz to relaly get going on the series. Hopefully they can maintain things now that they’ve found a good momentum.
