The Wake Volume 1
Scott Snyder/Sean Murphy/Matt Hollingsworth
Vertigo/DC, Collects issue 1-5
Hey look, I’m starting the year off looking at a DC book not called Sandman, this really is a brave new world!
In my defense, look at this creative team, for it is shiny and very talented! Back when I was buying New 52 DC, Scott Snyder’s Batman was the only DC book I bought for over a year on a monthly basis. He’s an insanely talented writer, and seems like a good dude judging by the quality of his tweets (obviously a very important tool in measuring one’s worth). On the art side of things, Sean Murphy is another creator I really dig, being a fan of his since his Hellblazer fill-in days, and following him onto Joe the Barbarian and Punk Rock Jesus. And with Hawkeye’s Matt Hollingsworth coloring the book, even I had to cave in, despite my heavy Marvel/Image bias.
The Wake is arguably one of the best sci-fi-horror comic I’ve read in quite some time. The creators really did their research when it came to this building this world, because a lot of the science involved seems plausible, or at least to my undereducated ass. The plot, which I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers, us marine biologist Lee Archer is offered a once in a lifetime job to go out to the Arctic to do some research on some odd noises the government has stumbled upon….or so she thinks! ( Gasp here please) Then the HORRIBLE AND SPOOKY truth is revealed, and the more stuff happen and ultimately it leads to into some world altering stuff. Actual world altering, not the for 6 months then everything is back to normal world altering you seen in Marvel event. Also there may be some wackiness that goes down in mankind’s earliest days, and the far future. No more details, but yeah, this books is nuts in the best kind of ways.
Snyder and Murphy have a working relationship going back to Snyder’s American Vampire series, and The Wake is a testament of how in-sync these 2 are. There’s some REALLY brutal stuff that goes down in this first volume, and some real nightmare inducing imagery as well. And like I said earlier it’s also incredibly smart, and you can tell Snyder did his research, who I believe does some teaching in addition to comics. The best type of horror is the believeable type, and Snyder does a nice job of tying marine biology and various culture’s folklores together in this story.
Sean Murphy remains one of the best artists out there. His style is rough, sketchy, and heavy on the dark inks, and that’s fine with me. I’m not sure if The Wake would have worked as well with photo realistic art, but it definitely does with Snyder’s rough, jagged art. It’s always super detailed, and characters all look great without looking like super heroes or super models. And again, with Snyder’s help, they’re all very believable, fleshed out, and rarely, if ever a cliche. And with Hollingsworth’s colors, Snyder scenes look amazing. I prefer black and white Murphy art most of the time, but Hollingsworth’s one of the best colorists in the biz, so his stuff only makes Murphy’s art better in the end.
The first act of this series ends on great cliffhanger, and I’m eager to see what volume 2 brings. The lead for the next volume and their world look super interesting, and I like what I’m reading and hearing from Snyder and Murphy. With Image currently owning the creator owned crowd, it’s nice to see a Vertigo book bring it, especially with the future of the imprint in question these days.
