STORY
Unearthed is a Lovecraftian body horror nightmare set in a day modern setting. I wish I could give you more of a preface than that but sadly the book offers no “Last Issue”“ blurb or context within the story itself to catch us up. Frankly that’s a shame because I love me some Lovecraft but I find myself just as lost reading this as the characters are lost in the ancient caverns within the story. Never forget authors, every comic is somebody’s first comic.
While the first scene works well enough to establish that something horrible is going on the following flashback scenes give me no real context for what is going on and I’m not even sure how connected the two flashback moments are in relation to one another. Which brings up an important problem with this comic, the transitions from scene to scene are confusing, though this may be as much or more of an art issue than writing one. More on that later. What I do know for certain is that several people on some form of military or scientific mission are trapped underground. One of them has lost a daughter in some way and has become attached to some mysterious girl and apparently some of the team has been wounded by or even eaten by monsters.
I wish I knew more because there are some fun looking eldritch shenanigans going on, but without having read the previous issues I have so little to go on that its easy to get lost in this story. I don’t know how or why the characters are underground, what their mission is, what they’ve encountered, why some are going mad or being possessed and others aren’t. It’s really too bad because while I’m willing to go back and find issues 1 and 2 not everyone will be. Typically I find Cullen Bunn and clear and easy to follow author but in this case I need much more context than I’m being given to get into the story properly.
ART
While the story is a bit of a mixed bag because I haven’t read the previous issues the art is just not up to par. Right off the bat with page one the art starts out sloppy and or lazy. The are multiple lines overlapping several objects and even breaking panel borders.Proportions are often off and perspective is haphazard at best. Transitions between scenes are confused by poor delineation of characters and scenes and the exact same colors being colors being used in two adjoining scenes. Personally I hate having to reread pages over and over to understand what’s going on. I was shocked at one point to discover a character I thought was a woman turned out to be a man. Some of the faces and bodies are just that poorly defined. Continuity is another issue. On one page you see a character reach for a knife and then draw it with his left hand only to slash at a possessed team mate with his right. How do you forget what you drew just a panel or two ago? I honestly wish I was inking this book so I could fix all the mistakes I see.
The color work is mostly rather uninspired and unimpressive that when it does get punched up to trigger an emotional response that the effect is garish in the extreme and just doesn’t fit well. Its not all bad though, while its easy to tell when Rivas is bored and just not giving it his all its evident that he is enjoying rendering the action scene and more interesting moments, but that’s no excuse for sloppy work. The best artists will put effort into all the pages in a book. I can see that the artist has potential but he really needs to do a lot of work before he is ready for a company like Image.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I’m pretty lukewarm on this one and I’m hoping reading the previous issues will show me there is a story here worth checking out. I’m certainly not swayed by the art. 1.5 out of 5
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UNEARTH #3
Writer:Â Cullen Bunn, Kyle Strahm
Art:Â Baldemar Rivas
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