Clone #1 – Review

By: David Schulner (writer), Juan Jose Ryp (art), Felix Serrano (colors), Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: A man is pursued by his own clones.

Quick review: This is the type of story that will appeal to a certain type of reader.  It isn’t for me, but there are a lot of folks who enjoy these clone-type stories (otherwise, why are there so many such stories?) where there are multiple clones of a single person.  Some clones are good, some are bad, some are in on “the big secret” and some clones are not.  You know how it goes.  As you can tell from my tone, I don’t personally tend to enjoy this type of story, but a lot of people are fascinated by this idea of having an “evil twin” or all those questions about nature vs. nurture.

The set-up for this issue is pretty simple even if we don’t get very much story.  We meet a 30-ish man named Luke Taylor.  Luke is a researcher at Los Alamos National Lab and has a very pregnant wife.  That part of the story is normal life stuff.  What isn’t normal is that he’s having dreams of being chased by guys who look an awful lot like him that later come true when he finds a bloody version of himself in his kitchen.  This leads to running, chasing, kidnapping, etc.  It’s all entertaining and well-written, even if this isn’t my kind of story.

Given that the story clearly isn’t to my tastes, one might wonder, “Well…..why did you buy it?”  I bought it because I really enjoy Juan Jose Ryp’s art.  It’s a little hard for me to describe Ryp’s work to someone who isn’t already familiar.  He probably most reminds me of Geof Darrow with all the fine-line detail.  Seriously, Ryp just pours over these pages, adding in all kinds of details and lines.  When he draws a man’s shirt, he doesn’t put one wrinkle there to accentuate the fact that he’s bending over and his shirt is bunching up.  Nope–Ryp draws about six winkles, all with their own families of sub-wrinkles.  He’s just insane with the detail.  He might even overdo it a little as sometimes I think the sixth wrinkle starts to sap some of the vitality from the image.  I also am always perplexed by Ryp’s faces.  He draws odd eyes and mouths.  Honestly, I can’t figure out why I like it so much–but I do.  There’s just something different and alluring about his characters.  The only bummer in this issue from an art standpoint is that Ryp didn’t get to draw a full-on, sexy woman because I know from past experience that Ryp draws great women.  Maybe a future issue will take place in a strip club or something?

Conclusion: A capable issue and if you’re a fan of clones or Juan Jose Ryp, you might want to check it out.

Grade: B-

– Dean Stell