That Distant Fire (2022) by JR Hughto and Curt Merlo
This is the first non-Jay Stephens book the resurrected Black Eye published, so I was really curious to read this — I haven’t read it before. It’s a very handsome hardcover book.
And we get an introduction (in Futura) that explains that this started as an unproduced movie script, and if there’s one thing to give me a sinking feeling it’s exactly that. Movie scripts (in my experience) rarely translate well to comics.
But let’s read on…
Well, OK, this is plenty “cinematic” (derogatory), but it’s also comicsey (complimentary). And the green is very close to the green on my couch, so that’s a plus.
It also feels a bit clunky — like that footnote to one of the panels that explain something that 1) probably doesn’t need to be explained and 2) what’s the point of those cochlear things, anyway? And no, they’re not a plot point — these cochlear devices introduced in the first act do not end up killing somebody in the third act. Chekhov would disapprove.
And pages like this: I honestly thought he was flossing his teeth, and that he had some kind of illness, and that’s why she came to console him (in panels three to five). I didn’t guess that he’d swallowed that red pipe until I was almost done with this spread and then had to backtrack.
Now, I love comics that are unclear and mysterious. It’s a device that can be used extremely effectively, especially in comics — make the reader work more and make them invest in the comic. This doesn’t feel like that, though. It just feels like it’s badly done.
This takes place in a pretty plausible near future, except that there’s things like these guys running around and… stealing gas? And that’s a thing that happens regularly… and those are trucks that don’t all have cameras? Can you even imagine a car made even ten years from now that doesn’t come with full always-on surveillance?
The book had been admirably restrained for the first act — nothing over-explained and few infodumps. So the transition to this kind of comic was pretty jarring.
And unfortunately, the dialogue isn’t very convincing. But a much bigger problem is that there are (I think?) about two dozen characters, and none of them have character. The artist bravely tries to allow the reader to tell them apart purely by giving them all different combinations of hairdos, facial hair and glasses, but it doesn’t help much when they’re all so interchangeable anyway.
One of the two main characters were fired from the research institute where they were inventing part of this thing above. And yes, it is indeed a Star Trek tricorder, but more confusing about all of this is why they fired him in the first place when the two of them (as a team) were ingenious enough to come up with this Miracle Technology McGuffin.
This is the kind of blog article I hate to write, and it can’t be any fun to read either — but I just didn’t like this book at all, on any level, really. Sorry!
Because the creators seem to have their hearts in the right place, and many of the ideas in the book are pretty good.
And by sheer coinkidink I’m drinking water from a Wobbly glass while typing this.
Finally, there’s a sketchbook section.
It looks like the book is sold out from Black Eye, but you can read it here. It was crowdfunded very quickly.
It’s well-reviewed on Goodreads:
That Distant Fire is a triumph of synthesis – the commixture of disparate ingredients in deliberate weights to concoct something new and raw yet intimate and familiar.
Hughto’s story is solid to begin with, but he’s got a really solid handle on how different people react under different situations. Paul doesn’t make the same choices his brother does, and neither make the same choices their sister does.
[…]
Further, this is really enhanced by Merlo’s art. His illustrations drive much of the story, such that there’s almost no dialogue until the end of the first chapter. Every panel seems very considered and deliberate, telling readers precisely what it needs to. Honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve read a comic where the script and art worked so harmoniously with one another, even longer since I’ve read one like that where the writer and artist weren’t the same person!
Here’s one that had similar problems that I had with it:
Unfortunately, this particular one didn’t live up to my hopes. I had a few problems with it, including some small but basic composition choices that interfered with the narrative flow. But my main frustration is that it tells a story that hinges on characters and their decisions but never spends enough time with them to let us truly understand those decisions.
But there doesn’t seem to be a lot of reviews out there.
This blog post is part of the Total Black Eye series.