Digital-CAPtionS – “Mayhem #1-3″

Just in time for Halloween, I received a package from Red Wolf Studios’ Marc Adona. Inside was the first three issues of his bloody action series, “Mayhem.”
 
Marc, a one-man wrecking crew who has done EVERYTHING in EVERY issue by himself, seems loaded down with all these tasks he has accomplished. So much so, it’s taken him a year to release just these three books…
 
 #1 – Oct. 2007
 #2 – Jan. 2008
 #3 – Aug. 2008
 
Mind you, I’m not criticizing Mr. Adona for this. It’s admirable he would attempt to do all this by himself. However, some things have suffered from his overloaded schedule, and since these issues were put out so far apart, I have chosen to post my opinions of this series thusfar as a whole. “Mayhem” is the story of Kalista Victora, a swordstress with every bounty hunter in the land after her ass. Set in a world of robots, traitors and no-nonsense gorelust, Kalista battles her way through every situation leaving disembodied and dismembered losers in her wake. With her swords spinning at hyperspeed, even a Ginsu knife-toting chef wouldn’t stand a chance.
 
We soon meet Mary, teased for looking like a boy, who can’t seem to decide if she wants to be Kalista’s sidekick or her undoing for the reward money. She’s an angry character with lots of wit and personality — my favorite person in all this mayhem.
 
The story was kind of hard to follow. Every time I felt some information coming towards me on the road ahead, I was suddenly taken down another path — a bloody path that never got back on the highway. At the end of three issues, I found myself more concerned about the “Gunhole” bar that got destroyed in a bar fight than our protagonist, as did many of the patrons in the place who seemed more worried about the beer they lost. It was meant to be comedy, but it just seemed out of place. I dunno. Some of the characters also seemed too aware they were in a comic book, as the stories flow was broken several times in place of a comment like “I wish I wasn’t in this issue” or something like that. Another attempt at comedy that just seemed forced for the sake of the line itself.
 
The art was impressive, if not a bit awkward. In some panels, I’m severely blown away. In others, perspective and anatomy were off. Don’t get me wrong, though. Marc Adona did a superb job telling his story through the art. It even reminded me of “The Dark Knight Returns” at times. Remember those crazy gangs and vigilantes? When the scenes in issue #1 shifted to the “Gunhole” bar, I felt that. The bar itself was cool as Hell; this Victorian-style building complete with pillars and a giant gun sticking out of the roof. It had windows in it and everything! So very imaginative.
 
The colors were ok for a color indy comic. Not great, but not bad at all. Some really interesting backgrounds were applied.
 
So up to now, it’s everything I would expect from independent fare by a new creator. Where it SERIOUSLY falls short for me is the LETTERING. Being a professional letterer myself, I hold this part of the creative process in as high regard as I do the art — after all, lettering is an artform. Sadly, the poor lettering made for the most difficult part of getting through these 3 books.
 
There’s a credo amongst letterers: great lettering should blend with the art and totally go unnoticed. Bad lettering can wreck the whole thing. Here are my complaints:
 
1. The fonts… I believe EVERY free Blambot font available was used in this. ALL of them. The dialogue especially seemed to change size throughout, some balloons being so large they covered artwork I would have loved to see.

2. Not one sound effect in the entire read was made special. Again, they all came from a SFX template Nate Piekos gives out free at Blambot.com. The colors were not even
altered, and to make it worse, the same ones are used over and over — sometimes in the same issue. This series has single-handedly prompted me to delete my own SFX template from Blambot. I can’t look at them anymore, and I only used some from it sparingly and from time to time in a pinch.

3. All the dialogue in the balloons are left justified.
 
I could go on about the letters, but I’ll save it. My advise to Mr. Adona would be to find a letterer so he can concentrate on improving one skill at a time… starting with his art, which needs less work than anything else he did in these books. There’s room for betterment there, too, but he’s years away from having his letters taken seriously. Go to http://www.digitalwebbing.com and run a classified ad for a letterer. There are dozens of aspiring letterers over there checking the ads daily, sometimes hourly, who are chomping at the bit to see their names in print willing to do it free just for the exposure… the opportunity to get a start somewhere.
 
All in all, I give this series a C-. If corners had not been cut in the lettering, it might have earned a C+… perhaps even a B-.
 
“Mayhem” is worth checking out. Marc’s art will improve over time, and I will be interested in seeing where this series goes, even if just to check in on Mary to see if she can grow her hair long and stop being called a boy! I did like Mary.
 
To order copies, visit Marc’s website at http://www.darkmarccomics.com or visit his blog at http://www.darkrobot.blogspot.com

Keep The Vision,
Jaymes Reed
 
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