The Cursed Island
Publisher: Soaring Penguin Press
Publication Date (September 2018)
ISBN 10 - 1908030305
ISBN 13 - 978-1908030306
90 pages of story and art
Remember back in the day when stories were about carefree adventure, when heroes were faced with dangerous cliffhangers (sometimes literally!), and you sat on the edge of you seat, breathlessly waiting to see how he or she would escape? Well, creator, writer, and artist Ryan Howe has once again captured that somewhat pulp-feel of adventure, heroism, and just plain-ol' good storytelling with his comic hero, Daisy Blackwood, Pilot for Hire.
The Cursed Island is the first collected story from Howe's website, www.daisyblackwood.com, where there are regular updates of the Daisy Blackwood stories. The story opens with an unexplained prologue of a group of men are coring samples somewhere, when they stumble across a rather unusual item...flash forward, and Daisy is asked to make a delivery to one of the western islands. Reluctant at first, she gives in and takes off just in time - for someone is after the cargo on that plane. As Daisy quickly discovers, there is more than just cargo on the plane; there is also a man with a gun, who is looking to have Daisy take him to a different island. It seems he has a box, and whatever is inside that box is singing to him, coercing him to do things he doesn't want to do, as it has many men before him. He wants to return the box before anyone else can be cursed by it.
Howe has mastered visual storytelling in a way most comics are unable to do in today's market - Howe does not use any narrative captions; rather, he relies solely on the dialogue and the actual action in each panel to tell the story. And let me tell you, he does a perfect job of it! I got so caught up in the story, it wasn't until I was re-reading it that I realized there was absolutely no exposition. To me, that tells the mark of a really great storyteller.
For comic fans and adventure fans, this has it all. And I will be up front about this - the story doesn't necessarily answer every question you may have. Some things are left up to the reader to decide or figure out, and that's okay. Because, while this tale is a story in and of itself, I know that there are more stories to come, and I have no doubt that Howe is setting up things for future stories.
This is definitely a must-read!
RATING: 10 mutated underground dwellers out of 10 for good, old-fashioned pulp-style, cliffhanger storytelling that is exceptionally enjoyable!
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