Comic Review: Bermuda #2 (IDW Publishing)

The new issue of Bermuda, the adventure title from IDW, carries forth with incredible sights and story.

Issue #2 pits the young crash survivor Bobby Randolph against some really ferocious foes! Will he be able to locate Andi, his missing sister? What secrets will the island of Trangle reveal in this issue?

John Layman knows his story, his plotting is superb, his story beats, and his Caribbean island. It’s Lost meets Robinson Crusoe meets Jurassic Park, and so on. And New Brunswick Canada illustrator Nick Bradshaw pulls out all the stops in the rendering of issue two. The textures, the exaggerated twists and turns of the figures, the amazingly drawn pirate ships and strange creatures. It’s a massive undertaking, but this “4K high res” approach to sequential storytelling is nothing new to Bradshaw: he’s been doing it for years. The difference here is that this is all new territory, vista-wise, and new territory for the readers too.

Colourist Len O’Grady deserves huge high fives for respecting the moods of the locales, the stormy briny seas, the lush and canopied tropical forest.

It’s a fun adventure, complete with Easter Eggs (shhh), surprises, twists, and fascinating young characters. And with the wealth of richly detailed pages, it’s a story that can be pored over again and again.

Bonus pages include a look at Nick Bradshaw’s layouts for pages in issue 2, plus variant covers.

IDW, Bermuda #2, $4.99 for 36 pages of content.