After interviewing Resident Alien creator Peter Hogan last week to tide me over, the wait is over and Resident Alien is here again.
The mystery continues as our two unlikely detectives drive into a rainy, dreary Seattle. Is it good?
Resident Alien: The Suicide Blonde #2 (Dark Horse Comics)
We find our protagonists on a long, boring car-ride to where they know the suicide blonde’s roommate lives. What follows is almost exactly what you would expect: Harry and Asta interrogate witnesses, dig into the suicide blonde’s past and open a lot of doors. That was actually what surprised me most about this issue, the doors. Throughout the course of this issue there are exactly 26 pictures of doors.
But alas, a comic should not only be judged on it’s door-quantity. The writing in this issue was exactly right for the book. Peter Hogan did a great job of giving us a good sense of what his characters were really like, more so than in the past two issues. The dynamic between Harry and Asta shifts and progresses, all of the people interrogated have very different and defined personalities and we even get a glimpse at Harry’s love-interest back on his home planet.
My only problem with the story/writing was a little plot convenience: Harry guesses two totally normal looking high-school kids to be somehow connected to the suicide blonde based on absolutely nothing. As it turns out, these two kids are very helpful informants and help Harry right along.
Back to characters for a minute, I’d like to applaud how Mr. Hogan gives us a better feel for who the suicide blonde was, it’s nice to have a sense of what she was like before she met her untimely demise. From the stories collected from Harry’s informants we see how her decisions and actions in life could have possibly influenced her death.
I am definitely coming around to Steve Parkerhouse’s style. It’s definitely not like any art I have seen in a comic before but I am learning to appreciate that. Especially the inks and colors throughout this comic really do a good job on backgrounds and sets. All of the rooms and buildings are well-done and at times quite magnificent. The figures are also very nicely drawn.
- Terrific writing
- Story is well-crafted
- Art looks real good at times
- A pretty big plot convenience halfway through
Is it Good?
Definitely. This is a great representation of indie comics at it’s best, two creators making their dream mystery tale come true through the pages of a comic book.
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