Ghost Planet is a very nice throwback to one of the early staples of comics, scifi horror stories. Burant weaves a story of a family of space explorers searching for a suitable planet for human colonization. There is a dire need for this as we learn that this family is just a fraction of a population that has been traveling through deep space for at least two years. Living in a “tin can” has detrimental effects on the human psyche. As the story progresses we will see how the family each exhibits this stress in turn.
The characters follow a few tropes of the scifi of the 50s and 60s that this comic is a love letter too. There are some early Lost In Space vibes, back when the show was going for legitimate scifi and not the campy style that would become its trademark. In spite of the family being Korean I couldn’t help but feel a certain bit of Americana was at play because of the influences at work. We have a nuclear family absent the mother, who is deceased. Dad, lead scientist who is not named and is driven to succeed in this mission on behalf of his late wife, Cheeyoung the older brother who has a frictional relationship with his sister Jun. Sojin his fiance who is trying very hard to befriend Jun. Jun however, is going through some teen angst and rebuffs a lot of efforts to reach out to her as the passing of her mother seems to have affected her attitude.
The dynamic between the family members feels authentic and organic to the situations for each scene in the story. It feels like I’m reading real people, which is not always an easy thing to accomplish as a writer. Burant has also laid subtle hints of the horrors to come once we reach the Ghost Planet itself. There is a well thought out ecosystem at play here and I can tell that he has done his research when it comes to certain organisms on this world. I like it when my scifi makes sense contextually and the writer delivers on this.
ART
Gorman does a fine job on the art chores for the most part. I loved the retro feel of his line work and his designs. The spacesuits have a nice aesthetic with their life support on their back and bubble headed helmets. There is nothing extraneous in the designs. It’s all functionally simple. Where he gets to have some real fun is with the creature designs and the gore. Again this is a case of things making sense, the beasts on the planet fit within this ecology once you understand its nature. The landscapes and lora are imaginative and Gorman’s page flow and layout is superb. It’s solid storytelling! The one failure is in those spacesuits that I like so much. To fit the heads into the helmets as he does would require humans to have necks that could stretch like a turtle’s. The neck collar is just too long for the placement of the head to work.
Estevez keeps the old school theme going with a simple palette of colors that shift from one monochrome to another. He uses particular colors to highlight certain moods in the story with red being a clear indicator of danger or incredible stress. The shading is subtle and just enough to keep the art from being flat.
Fowler’s cover is quite nice. In a simple image you get a clear sense of danger and dread on an alien world without showing anything extreme. Earthy colors are accentuated with fiery bursts of color to elicit the potential threats the protagonists might face within the pages.
LETTERS
Gorman does double duty as the letterer of the comic. His text is easy to read and his balloons well placed to lead the eye around the page. His sound effects are also effective and feel purposefully dated in nature.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Ghost Planet is a solid piece of storytelling in both art and narrative. It both satisfies my nostalgia and my modern sensibilities as a fan of this genre.
SCORE:
4.5 out of 5
(W) Jeffrey Burandt (A) Sean Von Gorman
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