Establishing Shot Review

Establishing Shot is a new two-sided 40-page anthology from Will O'Mullane. A collection of 6 short stories (colour shorts on one side, black and white on the reverse side) with a range of artists, allowing each story to be completely separate.

This is literally a comic of two halves. Not in a bad way, let's just get that cleared up straight away. The colour half offers three stories with artists Alfie Gallagher, Lane Lloyd and Edison Neo. The black and white half is with artists Daniel Romero, Butch Mapa and Clark Bint. Splitting the comic like this works better than you'd think and allows each artist to show what they can do alongside their respective counterparts.

The range of styles on show is impressive, especially with all showing good some real talent. Each story is distinct. Not slightly distinct, they're all very different. Personally, my favourite is Clark Bint's work on the story Crook's Rest. A black and white delight where there's some heavy use of black shadows to remove some of the background. They're all good though and I would struggle to even say what my least favourite. So I won't. They're all enjoyable. The variation works so much better than using a single artist.

In short, this is each story:

• Elsewhere in Manhattan (colour). Alfie Gallagher has a wonderful way of drawing people and makes great use of purple throughout.
• Bulwark Beatdown (colour). Lane Lloyd has created pages that look straight out of an old comic with a yellow hued page and a cartoon style.
• SFX in the City (colour). Edison Neo creates a colourful delight that includes a lot of high speed action and facial expressions.
• The Weak Link (B&W). Daniel Romero works on action panels making everything clear using few blocks of black.
• Short Supply (B&W). Butch Mapa works a more cartoon style leaning on black and Ben-Day dots for depth and shadows.
• Crook's Rest (B&W). Clark Bint has some detailed line work whilst leaning heavily on large areas of black to remove backgrounds.

As for Will O'Mullane, who writes all six stories, he shows a clear talent for writing comics. They aren't dialogue heavy and most rely on narration more than speaking. Some of the narration even goes over the speech bubbles, showing that the narration is more important than what's being said by the characters. It's a clever use of text boxes that you don't often see.

There is a good amount of humour throughout, even in some of the darker stories, along with some twists. The colour side is more superhero, good guys reading. Whereas the black and white side is darker, more villainy. It's a change that is well done and the change from colour to black and white for the change in tone like that is a stroke of genius. And somehow it all feels like it's tied together, even though the stories don't appear to be linked in any way.

Establishing Shot is a real treat. The more I look at it and especially on a second reading, there's so much to appreciate. Whether it's the individual stories on offer or just marvelling at some of the art, this is an anthology that shouldn't disappoint comic fans.

You can follow along with what's happening via establishingshotcomic.wordpress.com, and if you'd like to buy a physical copy then it's available to purchase at arachnidguy.gumroad.com. It's definitely worth the £8 that they're available for. And finally, if you're in London then copies are also available at Gosh and Mega City Comics.

Rating: 5/5