The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet #1, from writer Brian Hawkins (Black Cotton, etc) and Gnosis Studios, is Shakespeare-influenced, but don’t let that intimidate you.
Instead, the intimidation comes from the storyline itself: a powerfully built masked man is killing the people involved in a theatre production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Poe School of Art. It’s a slasher movie, with dreams of the limelight, and every cast member is a suspect.
Brian Hawkins combines tropes and genres here, playing with police procedural, psychological thrillers, and dark drama.
Artist Marcio Loerzer keeps us feeling claustrophobic with rigidly rendered hallways and buildings, threateningly ominous skies, plenty of dark and mysterious shadows, and figures shown in dramatically fixed poses. Colour is by Gabriel Roldan, Letters by Francisco Zamora.
The backup story, Believe In The Name, is also written by Brian Hawkins, with art by Hakan Aydin, colour by Luca Romano, and letters by Francisco Zamora.
In this story, the Belief In The Name religion claims to have conquered death. But it seems as, while death is not the end, it might be preferable to the state of the resurrected. This four-page serialized story packs a wallop in its short length: Aydin’s art is sharply focused and powerful, the narrative is as tight as a drum, and the colour is muted and spooky.
In addition to the two stories, the issue contains Hawkins’ behind-the-scenes look at the origins of The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet, with excellent pencil art roughs by Loerzer.
The comic originated as a Kickstarter project, and is now available as a digital download for $6, from the Gnosis Gumroad site;
Newsdesk