Sleep #6 // Review
It worked. Tabby’s idea worked. Jon was locked in the town’s mine. It’s a place where the creature was before its rampage through the tiny town. The place wasi in shambles, but the mine hadn’t exactly been in good repair before. Only thing is...Tabby’s been hit. She’s got a black eye. There’s something in town that’s just as dark as the monster and it’s a whole lot less obvious. Jon’s going to have to confront something else altogether in Sleep #6. Writer/artist Zander Cannon ratchets-up the cryptic mystery in the latest issue of a thoroughly engrossing series.
Really, it's just a good thing that she's OK. And it's an even better thing that he's OK. And it's even a better thing than all of that that the town is still more or less in one piece. However, there's the streak of paint. And someone who claims to know quite a bit. And there's the gentleman who hit her there's a lot to have to deal with. And Jon might not exactly be in the best position to be able to handle all of it. Things are getting worse for him. They might be getting worse for the town as well.
Cannon is working with a lot of tiny elements on a tiny canvas. It's just a small town. And he's doing a lot with it. It ends up being a lot of fun seeing how he's putting it all together. However, there are a lot of jagged edges around various bits of plot that don't necessarily connect up in a way that naturally flows from moment to moment. So it ends up, feeling kind of disjointed. That disjointed nature of all of the different plot elements coming together at odd angles could be really appealing to the right person with the right frame of mind. But it doesn't necessarily feel like the story is all that interested in being told.
A good portion of the appeal of the series is the stark simplicity of Cannon's art. It continues to have a striking presence on the page. Black and white and shades of gray occasionally hit pops of bright red. And though there isn't a whole lot of finer detail in the lines, there is a lot of detail on the page. And there's just enough to suggest that there might be hints hidden around the edges of the panels. It's an appealing adventure. And it's a weird mix of different elements. But it all comes across with an unstable energy that seems to be resonating off the page.
There's no question that Sleep has its own energy that feels very unique and distinctive. There's no questioning that it seems to be moving in a direction that really has its own energy. It's quite unlike anything else on the comic book rack right now. And there's not much that's come before it that's had as distinct. I feel as this series does. The monsters always there, but it never shows up. Th striking simplicity of the art. The black and the white and the red that could be seen across the room. It's all very distinctive and very distinct. It will remain to be seen whether or not it's as brilliant as each issue seems to be suggesting that it is. That's the problem with a mystery. Sometimes the mystery gets revealed, and all of the magic falls apart. There's a real danger of that with this particular series. However, there's no question that Cannon is doing a really good job of leading the reader in a direction that might prove to be appealing in the end.
