Shutter #1

Shutter #1 see below for preview images

Credits:
Written: Joe Keatinge
Artwork: Leila Del Duca
Colors: Owen Gieni
Letters: Ed Brisson
Created by Leila Del Duca and Joe Keatinge

I’m not really sure how I feel about this comic yet and I’m not really sure where it’s going.  I really tend to prefer comics that get right down to the dirty details from the get go and this one, well, it didn’t quite do that.

It begins with a little girl, Kate, and her father.  They are explorers…of planets, galaxies, the universe.  This kid is seven and for her birthday her father takes her to the moon for an expedition.  What a crazy-ass gift!!!  Don’t most seven-year olds get bicycles or sporting equipment or dolls or something???  But no.  This kid gets an expedition to the moon.  And does she appreciate it?  NO.  Just like any seven-year-old she can’t even begin to comprehend the incredible experience laid before her at her feet…literally.  She just complains that it’s boring and they are the only ones there and it’s so blah, blah, blah.  Soon, she and her father are accosted by “something” that is there on the moon too.  They run away, firing some sort of space weapon as they flee and they make it back home.

Then, Kate starts thinking and tells her father she isn’t sure she wants to be an explorer.  He explains that their family, for generations and generations, have all been explorers.  He tells her it is up to her whether the legacy continues.

Jump forward twenty years.  Her twenty-seventh birthday.  The world surrounding Kate is one in which humans and aliens exist together.  The characters kind of remind me of some of the character depictions in Guardians of the Galaxy. 

It seems that every year on her birthday she goes to her father’s grave and visits him.  This year, while sitting and talking to her father’s headstone, she is attacked by things I can only describe as ghost Samurai warriors.  There’s a lot of them.  And they are yelling “Ku!”.  She starts running her mouth that she’s not your average dainty female and that she’s dealt with their kind before. 

But, before she even gets a chance to destroy these monsters, another character appears.  Is this Ku?  Is Ku what they call HER kind?  We don’t know.  But, this character is strange looking.  If you’ve ever seen Return to Oz (1985), there is a friendly character that helps Dorothy named Tik-Tok.  He’s a short, fat, round, metal guy that was some sort of Royal guard at one time or something.  Well, this character that appears before Kate, he looks just like Tik-Tok but, a more sinister and wicked looking version. 

He tells here that they (I guess his crew or whatever) were hoping she would show up and proceeds to imply that he knows quite a bit about her.  Furious, Kate retorts that they know nothing about her but, she is quickly caught off guard with evil Tik-Tok’s response.  He tells her he does know about her and he also knows what her father was always protecting her from.  She assumes it’s people like this monster and blurts out such an accusation.  But, he eerily and angrily corrects her, telling her that it’s not people like him, it’s people like her siblings!

THE END

For a first issue, this was okay.  I know they leave you hanging on purpose and I expect that but, I do at least like to be introduced completely to the characters.  Especially if they are going to be such a matter of importance, like evil Tik-Tok.  I don’t even know his name.  I don’t like having to call him something from another story but, at this time, I don’t have a choice.  Plus, when I first started reading, I kind of thought maybe this comic was meant for younger people but, by the middle it was clear it really wasn’t.

I will say that the artwork is pretty cool in this issue.  There are some great color choices to emphasize the ghosts and such.  The artwork style also kind of changes according to the time period of the story.  That is an interesting story telling tool by the artists to separate different parts of the storyline.  It does make it easier to follow but, mostly it makes it more interesting visually.

It’s going to take me some time to locate more issues of this comic.  It’s from 2014.  But, I’ll do my best to get some more.  I’m actually quite interested in this Tik-Tok looking character.

RATINGS
Overall 3/5
Story 3/5
Artwork 3/5
​