ADVANCED REVIEW: Planet Paradise Vol. 1 by Jesse Lonergan

By Bruno Savill De Jong — Jesse Lonergan’s Planet Paradise is foremost an experiment of layouts and design. In this book, the sequential storytelling of comics is rearranged with large blank-spaces and innovative panel juxtaposition, reveling as much in ‘where’ the images are placed as ‘what’ is in them. It’s appropriate for a comic about a woman, Eunice, whose tourist space-ship heading for the titular pleasure planet gets knocked off-course onto a hostile world; her pre-arranged settings and plans have been displaced. Once there, Eunice fights off alien lifeforms and cares for the crotchety spaceship captain as they wait to get the passengers (still safely in hyper-sleep) back on-track.

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REVIEW: Hedra One-Shot by Jesse Lonergan

By Larry Jorash — Experimental is the only way to describe what Jesse Lonergan has done with the new Hedra one-shot, published by Image Comics. What we have here is a somewhat unorthodox 48-page contained comic story about space travel and nuclear holocaust. This book is void of dialogue, yet still finds a way to communicate its message, theme, and story in expert fashion. The color palette is minimalist and comforting to the eyes, and multiple reads of this book with its incredibly simple story evoke thoughts of a fine wine — rich in flavor with a thought-provoking aftertaste.

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