White Sky #2 // Review
There are a couple of people who pull up in a pick up truck. They empty out the body of a gentleman who seems to be mumbling something about Violet. This is a matter of some interest to a shirtless man in a cowboy hat named Lewis. He asks the two men about Bobby and Walter. Bad news: Bobby’s dead and Walter...well...it doesn’t really matter. Lewis shoots the two men in the head. Clearly something has gone wrong in White Sky #2. Writer William Harms continues his post-apocalyptic tale with artist J.P. Mavinga. Color comes to the page courtesy of Lee Loughridge.
Violet is on the run. As she's hearing a voice, that's telling her to find a help. If she can find help, she can save her father. Health is kind of hard to come by, though. The streets of the city are desolate. Granted, she's armed and everything. But she's not in any kind of a position to necessarily handle the situation, which happens to involve a ghost that’s confident that it can keep her safe the same way he kept his wife and kids safe...forever. She might be able to escape the ghost, but she might not be ready for what lies ahead.
The story comes across as a very well-executed horror. Harms is slowly revealing just how messed up things are in this particular post apocalypse. Violet continues to come across as a capable and deeply vulnerable hero. The darkness around the edges that seems to be all around her continues to seem ominous without being openly, threatening all the time. The total desolation of the world seems stylish enough. Harms’ pacing fuels more or less perfect as the gradually roaches occasionally leaping out of unexpected corners. It might feel quite shake, but not the way that Harms is executing it.
Mavinga curves the desolation into the page with minimal amount of line work. There's just not there to suggest everything that's going on around the edges. It's actually a very good style for the kind of desolation that Harms is bringing to the page. Loughridge’s washed out color feels perfectly faded. It's not often that horror is given a chance to really live in the light. But this is beautifully faded kind of a light that feels perfectly suited to a society that seems to be a living through its final nightmare.
It's really good that the backstory is not completely developed. The relative disorientation of the history that led to the first issue is suitably brought to the page in a story. That's really focused on the here and now. Survival is much more important than the history of how everything got to be the way it is. That sort of information is likely to be gradually introduced to the page in a time. For now, it's really just a matter of Violet making it to where she needs to be before the darkness consumes her entirely.
