AND WERE BACK!!!! Sorry for the late entries this month guys. But, when karma is pissed, things go crazy. I just got my computer back after dropping it and allowing gravity to smash it into 1,000 small pieces. With that said, as I waited for my tech to fix my computer Brett was still awesome and gave me some really cool assignments. So now that Indy Spotlight is back, here we go!

Manticore! A horror comic that is, how can I say? Amazing? This book is great. To be honest when I first hear of the premise I was caught off guard somewhat. I mean a thriller/horror story in a prison? Sounds like a great idea, but, then your like, but how? As in how can it work? What tropes are they going to use? What elements stay for the prison portions and which ones go? And for the horror / thriller parts, how do you build the tension just right? How can will the reader be invested to care about prisoners dying in horrific manners when I know most might be on death row for being horrifically violent people that a reader wont want to get emotionally attached to?

Well, I will tell you how. By proving they are human just like everyone else. Yes this book has many crime noir feel to it to propel its story and the art carries it with a beautiful black and white feel of the old 1940’s thriller comics. However, Manticore as a unique way of putting a modern twist within it, to help make the reader understand what its trying to do. The best part is how the dialogue is written for the reader to follow. It uses classic crime slang, but, not so much that a new reader would get lost. It has enough for the right feel but, not so much to be irrelevant. The only thing that bugged my about the letters was the first page, it just didn’t flow right in the one panel. However, I still got what the creative team was still trying to do. So it wasn’t that big of a negative. Definitely the best comic I read so far for this column to be honest. It was a fantastic story that I hope you guys buy.

If anything check out there site here Manticore has so much to offer its readers and the creative team behind it of Keith Miller and Ian Gabriel, go really well together. I don’t know if they worked together before, but, if they did I am interested in seeing what they did. These two work really well and that’s so vital in a good comic. When both creators can read each other and add to the beauty of the work at hand and not hinder it. I mean when you read this comic you’ll come to appreciate it.

The art work: 10 and the writing was: 9.5 (cause of the miss-lettered page) for an overall 9.5 out of 10. I’m serious this one is a buy guys, check it out.

Story: Keith Miller Art: Ian Gabriel
Story: 9.5 Art: 10 Overall: 9.5 Recommendation: Buy

Rosarium Publishing provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review