Paradiso #1 Review

Paradiso City

Written by: Ram V
Art by: Devmalya Pramanik
Colors by: Dearbhla Kellya and Alex Sollazzo
Publisher: Image
Reviewed by: Andrew McAvoy


Hmmmm. Maybe its just me but when I read the previews for a new comic book I expect that when I pick up issue 1 it will bear some resemblance to the preview description. Or at least I feel that I should be able to read that description after reaching the end of issue 1 and think, "ah yes, that neatly encapsulates what I have just read". Well....em...anyway, let's see what Paradiso delivered for us.

Okay. Firstly it bore no resemblance to the description in Image's publicity material. The problem in fact is that had I been tasked with summarizing this first issue I would have struggled. Firstly we do a 12 year time jump in the space of three pages. There is some narrative boxes that allude to a Tinkerman and Runaway Jack, and images of (presumably) Jack picking up a green light bulb-shaped device. The art is confusing, it seems too cluttered, but because there actually isn't that much detail in the art, I'd suggest that that effect is coming from a relatively unexciting mud brown palette that seems to dominate the pages of this book, and wash out all the other colors.

By the fourth page we do the 12 year jump and are in a place called Aquarius Point. Again despite the scene change we see that mud brown palette return, wash out nearly every other color and make the page decidedly uninteresting to look at. All the characters look the same; like grizzly old space pirates with bald heads and beards with the exception of Jack Kryznan. After 5 pages of brown we are shown Paradiso, and the art in this page looks very industrial. We are now treated to some grey-brown pages, adominated by skyscrapers, not of the type which whizz past your screen in a montage of modern day New York, but more the dirty 1970s and 80s looking New Yawk of my childhood TV memories (before Gulliani scrubbed all the character off it and turned it into Disneyland).

Then we are back to Aquarius. Jack fixes a kid's toy with the green lightbulb thing from the opening pages. Then the next morning he goes back to try and crack his way into Paradiso only to get leveled by some grizzly dudes on arrival. Then we get a scene back in Aquarius where two characters talk about seeing Jack use the green lightbulb the night before. Then we cut to a power station where some Danny Trejo looking guy talks about finding the Pneumas (which I can only assume is the green lightbulb).

Bits and Pieces

What can I say? A vision in mud brown with a storyline that was clear as mud and the most unexciting looking array of characters I have seen in a long time. I was a little disappointed to say the least. I won't be hanging around to see the story promised in the previews to finally emerge.

5.5/10