Bolero #4, from Image Comics, is not for the faint.
Okay, it’s about lovers. You see, a woman runs from a broken heart. But she can go to parallel universes, so that’s kinda cool. In previous issues in the miniseries, broken-hearted Devyn has visited various locations by going through these dimensional portals. She’s popped in on a Victorian aristocrat in the prehistoric age, and an astronaut at the end of the universe, and has found an amazing boyfriend. But now, in issue 4, she needs to confront the reasons why she and Nat broke up.
Writer Wyatt Kennedy does not take the road most taken, nor the door most opened. Most of the time, Kennedy is introducing confusion and multilayered meaning into the story equation. This makes me bothered and queasy, actually. When a large magic cat (lynx, bobcat, something like that) intersects the playback of many many scenes from Devyn’s past (cupcakes, amateur theatre, visiting Asian temples in the snow, and so on), I am topsy-turvy at the nervy plot. It’s a cat psychiatrist in outer space!
Artist Luana Vecchio renders the ever-shifting narrative with a sure hand, confidently portraying the universal themes, the graphic sex encounters, the cosmic floating assemblage, and so on with a graceful line, great expressions, and carefully luminous colouring. Brandon Graham letters but somehow both Kennedy and Graham miss a few mispellings. Oops.
Bolero issue 4 blends relationship, mysticism, and human misgivings. It’s beautiful but opaque and clearly not for everyone.
Image Comics, Bolero #4, $5.99 for 49 pages of content. Mature for sexual content.
Newsdesk