Farscape: Strange Detractors #2: Good issue. I'm in the process of re-watching the Farscape TV show right now, so I've got a good idea of all the characters' voices (except Jothee's), and Rockne O'Bannon unsurprisingly manages to capture all of them perfectly. Granted, that's like saying Joss Whedon knows Buffy's voice, but it's still a great thing for the book. The plot is also pretty much classic Farscape: the crew goes down to some planet for like 5 seconds, they leave because people are acting funny, and the next thing you know, the crew themselves start acting funny. And by "funny" I mean "vicious and eventually trying to kill each other." Jothee and Chiana break out into a full-on blaster fight, Noranti's all kooky and overly possessive of Deke, Aeryn shoots John in the shoulder, even Pilot is arguing with Moya. But the worst of all is a supremely (and characteristically of Farscape) unsettling moment where Aeryn actually puts a crying Deke down and holds a gun on him for a good page before John walks in on the scene (leading to his getting shot in the shoulder, as mentioned). It's terrible but at the same time sort of expected, given Farscape's acquaintance with all manner of psychoses and neuroses over the years. They had an episode where John dreamed in cartoons because of the tiny clone of his worst enemy living inside his mind, after all. So it's all classic Farscape kookiness and I'm looking forward to where it leads in the remaining two issues.
The art, on the other hand, didn't impress me. At first I thought the penciler was terrible, but the more I read, the more I realized that wasn't the case. He has solid if simplistic linework and he renders everything in proportion (except for the odd wonky face here or there). No, it's the colorist, Zac Atkinson, who's making the art look so bland. A penciler like Sliney requires some dazzling color to back up his sparse linework--think along the lines of Josh Middleton. I've seen two things that make linework like that pop: a washed-out, cel-shaded style of coloring and a dreamy, blendy, Photoshopped style with lots of bells and whistles. Atkinson seems to be trying for the former, but his colors remain too bold and his shading too blocky and illogical to pull it off. So, as a result, we get a good story in a somewhat ugly wrapper. There are panels where it looks okay, but that's the best it can aspire to under Atkinson's crappy coloring.
), there are region 1 season box sets out there. It took them forever to release them, but they came.
