Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here's the archive of the moments posted so far!
Today we look at Dave Gibbons' the Originals...
Enjoy!
We all know that Dave Gibbons is one of comics' greatest sequential artists, but it is works like the Originals which show off how impressive he is as a WRITER, as well.
The Originals is a story set in the future that is really just Gibbons telling stories about the mod movement, only setting it in the future (with hovers rather than mopeds, for instance).
The Originals tell the story of two friends who get caught up in a gang (the Originals) and how everything spirals out of control. Really, like many stories like this one (think West Side Story), the plot itself is fairly predictable - it's how the story is told that is the key, and Gibbons tells stories as well as anyone in the business.
Just check out the impressively intriguing opening to the story...
The sense of cinema permeates the entire book - Gibbons delivers the story almost as if we're watching a film. It's like a more realistic version of the film adaptation of Quadrophenia. The effect is mostly derived through his panel usage.
Check this out. He opens a sequence with these two pages...
getting you used to the single panels - but expands at the end and then ta da...
He does this frequently in the comic, which is why I say it reminds me of something cinematic - his page layouts are basically designed to give off the illusion of movement. It's really brilliant design work by Gibbons.
There's a lot more of these types of spreads in the comic - most a lot more dramatic than the one above, but they're so cool I will let you find them yourself when you pick up this book.
Check out the action in this fight sequence...
I really love the cleverness of Gibbons in this sequence...
What a clever visual way of showing a "split" between the two friends.
Throughout the book, also, there are little clippings to give you flavor of the times...
The characters in the Originals are very familiar, but with a voice as experienced as Gibbons, even the familiar can be surprising and compelling - and the Originals is quite a compelling read. Go out and get it, people!