Tigress Island #1 // Review
It’s 1987. A group of beautiful women are taken to Hong Kong. They’re there to serve as companions for the very wealthy. Their manager is a guy named Olmstead who assures them it’s all quite classy and not at all meant to be any sort of prostitution. The night proceeds and things get a bit foggy as they enter Tigress Island #1. Writer Patrick Kindlon opens a dramatic thriller with artist EPHK. The opening issue cleverly establishes an engaging nsemble of women who are suddenly thrust into a very unenviable situation that seems to have much in common with slavery.
They wake-up to find themselves in darkness. Thankfully, someone has a lighter. As fortune would have it, it’s not really all that difficult to open the door leading out of the place. As misfortune wold have it, the door in question is a large metal shipping container that’s suspended directly over the ocean by a fright hellicopter. (One of the women nearly falls into the ocean when she finds out.) The women are quickly introduced to their self-appointed provost--Sorinah. She shows the ladies around a big jungle island with a vast underground complex The ladies are joining a rather large team against their will.
Kindlon introduces a really, really big ensemble of protagonists in the first issue. Each one of them has a very distinct personality that seems to be leading at a direction that could theoretically be very complicated. These aren't stereotypes. These women. Though they might seem as much at first. Each one of them has something appealing about them that seems to suggest a greater mystery that could be explored in the issues to come. Time will tell quite precisely how it is that everything plays out. But the first issue seems really well paced and remarkably well constructed, considering the size of the ensemble.
The artwork is actually pretty studying once you get used to the fact that there aren't any pupils or iris in any of the characters. It's a little bit disturbing at first period but once the visual reality of the series settles in,EPHK’s work is absolutely gorgeous. Very stylish. The color lends a really nice sheen and atmosphere to the page. There's a lot of subtle shades of personality and emotion that are playing out on the faces of the characters. It all hits the page quite dynamically.
The first issue has wasted little time and establishing the basic premise of the series. It's kind of hard not to. The first 20% of the series is already finished. There's only five issues in the entire series. So it's going to need to move very quickly in order to really establish itself and get everything moving. Writer an artist understand this on a very fundamental level. It really feels like the concerns of the women and the island that they're on are in a very good hand and judging from the first issue. This looks fun.
