The Silver Coin #1 // Review
It's not just following a title character. It's not just following a title group. There are countless ways to put together a comic book series. This month Image Comics brings a new anthology to the rack with The Silver Coin--an anthology series focussing on the lives of those people encountering a single blessed/cursed object. Writer Chip Zdarsky and artist Michael Walsh bring the first issue to life as a rock' n' roll frontman encounters the coin in 1978 and uses it to fuel success that might turn into something truly incendiary. It's an interesting opening to a series with a great deal of potential.
It's the end of the 1970s. Ryan has been playing rock in small venues for years. He's about to be pushed out altogether by the overwhelming pop force that is disco music. Genuine passion and desire are riding through the music, but it doesn't mean a damned thing if no one is there to hear it. Ryan needs something to draw in new audiences. He inadvertently finds it in the form of a single silver coin that his mother left behind. Using the coin s a guitar pick allows people to hear his music again. Success brings0-in the possibility of a recording contract with a major label. Ryan will need to hold it together for long enough to reach his dreams.
There have been cursed/magical item serials before. Friday the 13th: The Series, Warehouse 13, and others have found success in a format where a central ensemble of characters encounters a parade of different items. Silver Coin switches it up with a single cursed item faced by a parade of different characters. The first outing for the title artifact is a fun one involving a twist on the traditional Ziggy Stardust-style cautionary tale of pop music success. Zdarsky establishes a firm grounding for where the silver coin was at the close of the '70s.
As Walsh is solely responsible for every end of the artwork, he has full control over every element of the story's visual end. Aspects of the story lean heavily into the color that Walsh is putting on the page. Other ends of it are a more intimate dance between light and shadow rendered in between blackness and empty space. The drama pours out onto the panel with moody resonance. The action hits the page from the stage as Ryan and company play. There's a very dynamic energy to the visuals rendered in concert, offset by more muted moods in silent moments.
A single coin can be remarkably versatile. It might have been used for so many different things in so many different ways throughout human history. Each issue in the series will be written by a different writer. The series has a huge field open for it in future issues that could slowly reveal an arcane history for the coin that might slowly reveal very complex and convoluted mythology. In the future, the challenge is going to lie in finding novel ways to explore the exploits of a single piece of dark magic.
