Last Breath
Staff: Sam Eggleston, Jason Baroody, Josh Oakes, John Hunt, Kim Eggleston
Overview:
Hard hitting space survival story that is competently executed
Review:
I love a good scifi and today’s entree is “Last Breath” which as a crying astronaut on the cover so- hey, I guess this is my cup of tea. This is a KickStartered comic and I’m always glad to see delivery on those. Anyway, let’s jump in.
This comic opens with the iconic space race and mainlines us some concentrated backstory that expands the timeline of the space race into the future. I am glad to see that they didn’t go to hardcore into the scifi (no giant robots, alien invaders, etc) when they begin with such a historically grounded premise.
I gotta say, the art is spot on for this comic. It’s pretty standard high production value American style comic art. It has realistic proportions and even though it’s a scifi that takes place in the future (no that distant though) it still looks very recognizable. I really dig the way they use expansive starfields behind the character to stress how alone he is.and how little they make him look for a lot of it. The lettering is also standard comic book fare for comics and that is to say it was legible and differentiated internal dialogue and spoken dialogue well. The thing with lettering is, when it isn’t a problem it’s good (it’s SO easy to mess up).
The writing is done primarily through internal narration for the first half, which again, lends itself to the “lone survivor” vibe it is going for. There is no one to hear him, so he talks to himself. I don’t want to spoil a lot of this comic (it’s VERY well written) so I’ll leave it at that.
Plot wise, again I am not looking to spoil this so my hands a bit tied, but it is something not to be missed. It reminds me of Apollo 13 a little bit and I say that in the best possible way. There is some very good characterization, though after a point we basically are left with two characters in an impossible situation. They don’t got into the geopolitics that is evidently going on in the background (then again, this is the first issue) and the plot kind of flies by as the pacing picks up to a rocket’s pace by the end. A defter hand might have slowed it a bit near the end but then again it could have ruined the action a bit.
All and all this is a solid comic and you should pick it up if only for the production value and premise. Not to spoil anything but it’s a near-future, hard science, survival story with man facing off against the environmental dangers of the exploration of the moon. It’s competently written, engaging, with some great art to boot. The backers for this KickStarter will NOT be disappointed. Give it a read!
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