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Review: The Pale #1-5

Nemesis

Starting as a web-comic and now joining a growing list of successful crowd-sourced comics; The Pale by husband and wife team Sanders and Jay Fabares is a mixture of crime drama, small town melodrama and supernatural mystery.

The series starts slow and I was unsure what kind of story was being told.  That said, the book is compelling from the first with great character work capturing the reader’s interest and holding them.  The Sheriff of Rocket Ridge, Arizona is a Rick Grimes character with a smattering of Sherrif Dewey from Scream thrown in.  A small town sheriff, with all that entails, he nevertheless seems competent and has an edge that is softened somewhat by the Dewey aspects of his personality.  Keeping with the Scream theme, his deputy is reminiscent of Deputy Judy of Scream IV fame.  There is an obvious sexual tension between the two characters and Deputy Dawn Knotts, yes they went there lol, keeps things light when necessary while being loyal, trusting and an altogether wonderful character.  The town of Rocket Ridge has a number of other residents which I’ll let you find on your own, but their various sub-plots promise to weave an interesting tapestry as the story unfolds.

Interestingly enough, all of those various sub-plots obfuscated the main plot of the book and kept me engaged before showing me where the story was going.  This was impressive.  The main plot of this series is the investigation into a series of murders of Native American women across the country.  FBI translator, Franklin Ink, out of Denver, Colorado is a fascinating character who has, for reasons unknown, been keeping tabs on these murders.  When he receives a ping from NCIC (National Crime Information Center) that alerts him to a dead body found by the Sheriff’s department in Rocket Ridge he departs for the small town intent on investigating.  The character of Fink is wonderfully written, with several impressive but plausible abilities and one defining condition that gives him a unique perspective on the world.  Having Fink, with his outsider perspective, enter this small town kick-starts the story and promises much more to come in the future as the various personalities interact and they pull the threads on the mystery they are trying to unravel.

The books are drawn in black and white and the artwork is pleasant to look at with a nostalgic comic strip feel to it.  While none of the panels are very intricate or detailed, the artwork is nonetheless impressive and manages to tell the story very convincingly while keeping the tone light and dare I say homey, as seems appropriate for the small town of Rocket Ridge.  That said, when the situation calls for it, Jay Fabrares does deliver panels that convey more detail and give depth to the story.  The line work is clean and the character design, locations and feel of the book are consistent, authentic and wonderful to look at.  If I had one criticism, it would be the lack of detailed inking on the book.  The inking that is done is done mostly to highlight the pencils and provide light shading but their is no ink work done for effect if that makes any sense.  However, with that said, I think the overall tone of the book might suffer if the book was over-inked and it was transformed into a heroic comic epic instead of homey supernatural mystery.

All in all this is a very good series.  In testament to that, when I reached the end of issue #5, I screamed internally knowing that I would have to wait for the rest of the story.  That is always the sign of a title that is engaging and one that I was thoroughly engrossed by.  I can’t recommend this highly enough and I hope you’ll check it out.

Writing – 4.5 of 5 Stars
Art – 4.5 of 5 Stars

[yasr_overall_rating size=”medium”]

Concept – Jay and Sanders Fabreras
Writing – Sanders Fabrares
Art – Jay Fabreras

Visit their website: thepalecomic.com

Author Profile

Nemesis
Nemesis is a poet, writer and author of the upcoming novel The Long Game. He is a writer of science fiction and supernatural thrillers. Besides novels and short stories he writes for UK based ASAP Comics developing new stories for Level 8 and OPSEC. Nem is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and tries to bring those experiences into his writing.

He lives and works out of his home in Riverside, California with his wife and three children. When not writing he enjoys reviewing comic books and graphic novels for ComicCrusaders.com and living the Southern California life with his family.
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