The Seasons #3 // Review
A couple of sisters are arguing. Their sister Autumn has been trying to warn them of evil carnival people. Spring ran into them. It was an exceptionally bad experience for her and she’s only trying to get her sister Winter to take notice of what’s going on. Spring’s going to have some difficulty of that in The Seasons #3. Writer Rick Remender continues an engaging adventure story with artist Paul Azaceta and colorist Mattheus Lopes. The weirdly engaging family drama continues to draw quite a bit of energy in its third outing. There’s a delicate interplay between emotionally integrated art and clever bits of dialogue.
It doesn’t help that Spring is cleaning-up when Winter comes down the stairs to yell at her. Winter’s an artist, but her work isn’t exactly paying the bills and Spring has quite a bit to handle in her day job as a courier. On top of everything else, Spring has to face her boss with a bag full of undelivered mail. After a bit of yelling it appears as though she’s been fired again. Now she’s forced to face the world of unemployment as things continue to get worse for her.
Spring has been great fun to hang out with every month. She’s an interesting blend of quirky, imaginative and talented that makes for a really fun trip between two comic book covers. She’s having a particularly bad day in the third issue and it’s only getting worse for her. The third issue also finds Remender adding levels of complexity to Winter...who turns out to have manic-depressive personality issues. This is really difficult for any author to mange in the tight confines of a single issue, but Remender does a shockingly good job of keeping depressive Winter from manic Winter in a way that keeps her consistent without spending a whole lot of time with her. It’s quite an accomplishment for Remender.
Azaceta can say a tremendsous amount with only a few line here and there. There’s a clever amount of characterization and rendering in Azaceta’s economy of line and form that works quite well with the amount of depth that Lopes is able to add-in through the use of color. The color fits perfectly into Azaceta’s style without overpowering it. Above all, the overall visual reality of The Seasons continues to exhibit a look that feels distinctive from everything else on the comics rack today.
Three issues in and Remender is only beginning to reveal the full depth of the world that he’s created for the Seasons sisters. He’s got. grand sense of style in world building that also seems to be working its magic in his Sacrificers series, which is running concurrently with this one. He’s had a great deal of talent in delivering some really appealing stories to the comics page over the course of the past decade or more. It’ll be interesting to see where he goes with this particular story next month.
