When you’re out of the superhero games, it’s best to stay out.
Creative Staff:
Story: Ken Krekeler
Art: Ken Krekeler
What They Say:
Tom Ferris lives in a world of costumes and wonder. Figures streaking across the sky, hurling themselves over rooftops at night. They are commonplace. But Tom doesn’t notice that world anymore. His world is made up of spreadsheets, phone bills, software, coffee, collared shirts. Every night, he lies awake, wishing to be the man he once was. Today, Tom gets his wish. And the world will never forget him again.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
There’s a lot of books out there that explore the world of superheroes that are outside of the Big Two publishers and that’s usually something that can be handled well. Though a lot has been said over the years in terms of deconstruction and reconstruction, there’s always new ways to interpret things as the world changes and different people with backgrounds and perspectives offer new ideas. Dryspell, which comes from writer/artist Ken Krekeler, does just that and with a pretty good sense of style about it. It may be a bit much at first with an Alan Moore quote for some, but as we get into the book and what it’s trying to do, it starts to come together in a pretty interesting way. But it’s the kind of book that really does take the whole issue and a re-read to get into the full feeling of it.
The opening issue focuses on a man named Tom Ferris, an office worker who spends his day doing design work at an advertising firm. It’s a pretty mundane world and with the colors used and the shadowing of it all, it’s got that kind of oppressive feeling about it that a lot of people can relate to. What he lives in is a world full of color through with superheroes that exist out there, such as the big one of the moment, a man named Apollo who just saved an airliner that was going to crash in the ocean. But as Tom watches this with a few other people around, he has this sense that there’s something wrong about Apollo, something that has him feeling wary and distrusting of the hero. But for most of the world, he’s the golden boy of the day. That’s just a background piece in a way though as we don’t even see a closeup of Apollo or even his face. It’s a good piece of mood setting though and it gets us into Tom’s mindset a bit.
And it is an interesting mindset, as we see his home life with his girlfriend which has some of the usual problems and disconnects that go on. The really interesting part is that he spent time a year ago getting art supplies and a canvas to try and paint, to find a way to express all the things going on inside of him and find inspiration. But nothing has come in that year and he’s still got that empty canvas sitting there, almost taunting him in a way. It does some decent stuff to explore what his view on the world is in a way through the narration and you do get a good feeling for Tom as it progresses, particularly when combined with what we see of his workplace experiences as well.
But the really fun part comes when one of his bosses at work pulls him into a private meeting and tells him that he knows who Tom really is. While we don’t get a name and it takes a bit of hemming and hawing before Tom admits it, it turns out that he was a superhero before. And his boss is part of a group that gets together every now and then and he wants to bring him into meet them, just to hang out. We get a good impression of what Tom was like as a hero and that he did some amazing stuff, but it comes with some great twists as well that makes you laugh about how he could handle the position of being a hero. It’s not really new or groundbreaking, but seeing him in this particular part of his life after escaping from the world of capes and trying to find something normal, but struggling hard with it, is interesting. Particularly if you look at it as if he’s in a dual form of withdrawal, one from the drugs he was on to give him what he needed to use his powers and another withdrawal from being part of that world and the experience of it all.
The book takes some darker turns in the second half as these reveals come down and we start to peel back the layers of who Tom really is, which is pretty interesting compared to the first impressions you have. There’s a lot of people we meet in the second half and some of the connections are certainly interesting, and you can see the positive and negative side of it as Tom revisits some of those he knew, but there’s also the surreal side of what his boss ends up doing to him in order to try and draw him back in. Krekeler does a good job with the dialogue throughout the books, as it is kind of done sparingly at times that feels natural, but it’s at its best when we get the internal dialogue narration going on. There’s an interesting person to start to explore here and I keep feeling like I’m getting a kind of Constantine vibe from him in a way with the weariness. And all of this is really made all the more substantive by the visual design that Krekeler brings to it. It has a passion project feeling about it with some great, tight panel layouts during his work days while having more expressive and expanded views during his more artistic insight moments in the narrations. The dynamic of the layouts and artwork really helps to drive this all the more.
In Summary:
Sometimes the best thing you can do is just grab a random book and run with it. I went into Dryspell with no clue what it was about and it took until about halfway through the book before I felt like I was starting to get a handle on it. And going through this period of discovery, breakdown and experience of the exploration of what being a superhero is like in this particular world offers a pretty interesting first person perspective. Tom Ferris may not be the most original character, but he’s explored in a pretty good way here and it feels like there’s so much more to delve into with his life, his past experiences and what’s going to happen to him now that he’s gotten a taste again, a taste he’s managed to avoid for over a year. Definitely worth taking a chance on if you like things that avoid the traditional superhero route and instead focuses on the kinds of realities of it all.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Action Lab Comics
Release Date: May 28th, 2014
MSRP: $3.99
