Radiant Black #43 // Review
Nathan has moved back to L.A. He’s moving into a little one-bedroom place in Los Feliz. He’s happy to be back, but there’s a bit of a period of adjustment that’s going to have to happen. A little while later he’s standing in line when he runs into an old friend. The good news is that she knows a producer who is looking for a writer for a film project. He’s perfect for the job. Things start to turn around for Nathan in Radiant Black #43. The writing team of Kyle Higgins and Michael Busuttil continue their long-running series with artist Giona Zefiro and the coloring team of Rod Fernandes and Marcelo Costa.
The project involves an adaptation of a comic book called Ordinary Gods. It all seems remarkably tenuous, but the producer is ready to hire Nathan on the spot. He’s already read some of Nathan’s work and he’s ready to hire him. So he takes the job and starts writing. Hollywood screenwriting is its own kind of grind, though, and there’s no telling where it’s going to take him...There ARE distractions, though, and it’s only a matter of time before those distractions become totally unavoidable.
Higgins and Busuttil dive into some of the rather less than glamorous elements of life as a Hollywood screenwriter. This contrast against action in the foreground as a superhero, dealing with criminals who have access to contraband technology. It's kind of a fun contrast. And it's kind of cool to see super hero with drama contrasted against a what feels like a very realistic portrayal of a glamour adjacent job. The earthbound and of life in Los Angeles lens that much more gravity, to be superhero end of the story. It's a really well balanced, and well taste package.
The atmosphere of Southern California feels very authentic on the page. Not just in line in form but in color as well. It's very atmospheric. Zafiro find some appealing angles for the action while the coloring team, lens shadow, depth, and radiance that people very distinct to each other in California. Above all, the issue is probably at its best when it's a rendering and defining silent moments. There is a quiet desperation of a Hollywood screen. Writer has money and has a job, but is having difficulty focusing in light up everything else that's going on in his life.
It's pretty remarkable how much story this series manages to get in without over rendering the dial. So much is said in the course of an issue, just by virtual decisions that they've made with respect to what's being included in the issue. Because there are a lot of moments presented in the life of Nathan that might not occur to most writers as being something that would necessarily be appealing or necessary in the wrong of a situation like this. Even the decision to set the central part of the series in Chicago is kind of a cool idea. They deliberately placing it just out of the center of where so much of this sort of thing is so often placed. It's very appealing we all center and yet very appealing the commercial at the same time.
