Like with most Image books, I am flying into this one blind. All I know is that it is being written by Greg Rucka (you know, that guy who wrote Lazarus and Gotham Central) and that’s more than enough for me. Is it good?
Veil #1 (Dark Horse Comics)
A mysterious woman wakes up, completely naked in the middle of an old, abandon subway station. She rambles on and on, speaking in rhyme or repeating words she hears from others and then doing a twist on them. No one seems to have an idea about who the hell she is or if she is even sane. However, there appears to be more to her than meets the eye.
For one thing, I think she was friends once with a guy named Willard.
This was rather… weird. It’s not bad, but not very good either. There isn’t much to the story to start with either: random mysterious woman wakes up in subway, wanders onto a street, is taken home by a Good Samaritan, and then things go crazy when random jackass friend of Samaritan tries to take her. There’s not much else to it, other than the mysterious backstory of this woman. The rest of the characters aren’t interesting (that jerk is way too unbelievable with what he does) and the issue just kind of ends right as things finally start to get interesting.
The rest of the writing is okay for the most part. This is a very decompressed book and like I said, not much happens or is accomplished until the end. I mean, the first eight pages were just the main character rambling to herself as she walks around the subway platform and on the streets. It does have some sinister implications judging by the creepy nature of the visuals during this bit, but not much else. Then the rest of the book is just her interacting with some other characters, who have no development or any form of depth to them (I have no idea about why one of them is friends with the jerk character). The dialogue is fine overall, but the only thing that stands out about it is the woman’s speech pattern. There is some potential here to be sure and it has a good creepy vibe to it with the opening bit, but there really isn’t much here to chew on ultimately.
The artwork for this comic is done by Toni Fejzula, who has an interesting style that works for the book. With the way he draws people and animals, along with the strange shadows, he really brings an unnatural and creepy vibe to the art. The locations and backgrounds are also great with capturing that creepy tone and showing how just unclean and dirty this world is (then again, aren’t subways always like that?). The coloring, which I think is also done by Toni, is vivid and eye-catching with its choice in dark colors that help capture the mood of each scene well. Also, purple. Lots of purple is used with the colors.
Is It Good?
Veil #1 is an alright comic that could have been better. It has potential here with its creepy vibes, mysterious, and artwork, but it lacks strong story and characters to get you truly invested in it. Before you go read this issue, perhaps you should wait just a bit until the second issue comes out and get a better idea of the direction this series is going.
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