Review: Knight Temporal #1

Cullen Bunn’s work is everywhere; he’s been a prevalent driving force in the creative world this year, which isn’t something I’m saying to discredit any work he’s done before this, but seriously, every corner I turn workwise, I feel like there’s something that he’s writing or somehow linked to hidden in the pile of things I have to review.Â Again, not a complaint. Knight Temporal by both Bunn is the Schrodinger’s Cat of titles that I literally had to reread a few times to really grasp in its entirety. Not because of my attention span, which can often be a terrible problem for me, but because I really wanted to understand some of the things going on and correctly pinpoint my emotions after the issue closed.

There’s a duality to the way that all of the pages fall into order that echoes both sides of time; in the same vein but never quite flowing through the exact capillaries together. Strangely in sync but somehow off time. It’s jarring to try and understand at first, mostly because time skips so drastically from one second to the other after Auguste de Riviere makes his way through the forest and yet, somehow, our main protagonist seems to be all too affected. You’ll recognize other people around him, companions who are like upside down versions of themselves perhaps. Or at least, that’s the vibe I got from reading. Something is off here. We’re just not sure what yet.

The art in the title by Fran Galan – with letters by David Sharpe – is beautiful. It reminds me of something close to that of Riley Rossmo’s work on Cowboy Ninja Viking, but more detailed somehow. In fact, in some of those close up panels of Auguste’s face I actually whispered aloud to myself about how much he reminded me visually of Jon Snow. Each face is expressive and well detailed but also somehow still maintains to be – for lack of a better word – slightly cartoony looking. Not in a watching a Saturday morning cartoon way, but in that still slightly sketchy, not always completely softly rounded way. There’s a movement to the lines of the art that carries its own action.

The colors always washed with a hint of vivid undertone while retaining mostly their somber hues as we drift back and forth between time; forest and city. The known and the unknown. The epic of a hero hunting down their nemesis through the folds of time and space slightly dark like the shadows that paint the characters faces with turmoil for experience itself. For me, there’s a very real sense of unease. I’m not sure if some of the hints or slight shifts in the camera perspective in the panels will bring what I think is actually going on into light, but I’ll just have to keep reading this 4 out of 5 star title a bit more to see if it does.

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(W) Cullen Bunn (A/CA) Fran Galan