What I Bought 7/27/2020 - Part 2

Today we're looking at the last two issues of a mini-series. I'm writing this while I'm supposed to be paying attention to a division meeting, but it's all either stuff I already know, or stuff that's at least two levels above my head. This is more productive.

Canopus #3 and 4, by Dave Chisholm (writer/artist/colorist/letterer) - That does not look like it's going to end well for her, does it? Perhaps she'll be found in a field by some kindly farmers.

We learn why Helen came to this planet in the first place, that she found signs of a substance here that could be enormously beneficial to the Earth. If, you know, Earth was still a going thing. Helen has her own problems, though she'd rather not deal with them. Or, she has very different ideas about what her problems are. External versus internal.

Her suit computer leads her to what she thinks is the material to help fix her ship's engine, but surprise! It's a corpse. A human corpse. Things go downhill on a rocket-propelled rollercoaster car for her from there. She has to choose whether she can let go of her bitterness towards all the people who left her behind or betrayed her. Focus on what she can do by going forward, rather than constantly trying to go back to settle old grudges. Actions motivated by love or by spite. I think it undersells the value of spite, myself, but I'm probably not a good judge.

I don't want to describe too much of what happens, because I think this is definitely a series worth tracking down when you have a chance. I found Helen a relatable character. Arther brings a more light-hearted aspect to things, which could seem out of place in a story about someone being forced to confront their psychological trauma, but it keeps things from being too miserable. And his tone has a therapeutic effect. Helen gets to vent her anger and frustration safely, to someone who can remain mostly unfazed in the face of it. Plus, he's the one who actually knows what's going on, so a valuable source of exposition.

The further into the story we get, the more Chisholm subtly shifts the planet. It started as a sort of dull, greyish-purple in issue 1, and by the middle of the fourth issue, it's this deep, reddish-purple. The planet initially seems like a rocky, desertlike surface, mesas, crags, and canyons. A washed out version of New Mexico. The longer it goes, as the color shifts, so does the apparent texture. In is subterranean tunnel in issue 3, it starts to look like flesh, or some kind of viscous fluid. Whatever lava lamps were made of. After that, it turns to a sort of soft sandy substance. It looks solid on the outside, just like the rocky surface when she first arrived, but she can pull up a handful easily, sift it through her fingers.

The planet responds to her, obviously. Appearing dead and dull when all she sees it as is a place to get this substance she's after. Which is itself, just something she thinks will give her life meaning. Let her save the world, prove herself to all the people who didn't think she was worth sticking around for. The longer she's there, the more of her seeps into the world, the more alive, more vivid it becomes The more fluid and unstable it becomes, fault lines in her causing things to fail in the place around it. It's kind of weird, because I think she wants others to hurt like she does - part of why she lashes out at Arther from time to time, his cheerful attitude - but she mostly wants to do it by succeeding. Accomplishing great things so they'll feel bad they left, or that they doubted her. Motivation via spite can take you pretty far.

What I Bought 3/28/2020 - Part 2

I've been waiting all morning for someone to pop out and say the current state of things is a big April Fools joke. Although, I've been waiting for that for the last three years at least.

Canopus #1, 2, by Dave Chisholm (writer/artist/color artist/letterer), Dustin Payette (color artist) - Must be nice to have an entire planet to yourself to sprawl out on.

Helen wakes up, alone, on the surface of a world orbiting the star Canopus. She doesn't remember why or how she got there. She can't get in touch with Earth. The ship can't leave unless she goes and retrieves some material it can use to make replacement parts. She's accompanied on her trip by an odd little creature called "Arther", who insists she's his mother.

The planet appears deserted, and Chisholm uses a pretty muted color scheme for the landscape. Kind of bland, grayish-purple. Except that as they follow the route prescribed by her in-suit computer, Helen keeps finding things that shouldn't be there, all of which are in more vivid and varied colors. All of which, however comforting they might be initially, turn awful (some of them are awful from the jump). Things that remind her of Earth, of all the people that have left her over the years, as seemingly everyone has. Except her mother. Seems like Helen might have closed the door on that relationship when she was young. Not sure if that'll be expanded later on.

Chisholm shows us the backstory in pages done all in a particular shade, with lots of small panels overlaid on each other. They progress in a winding pattern up and down, then across the page. There are additional panels around the edges of the primary ones that act like echoes. The image, but with some of the color lost, and any sound or dialogue missing. I guess it works as a stylistic choice. The way the panels are set on the page kept tripping me up when I'd reach those pages, so I'd have to start over and slow down to make sure I was following the order correctly.

She finds her father, an astronaut who left when she was a child as part of a mission to colonize Mars, and vanished. But he's just a pale imitation, even if she's convinced he's somehow the one real thing on the planet. Only capable of saying a few things. Indifferent when Helen is in danger.

I'm guessing Helen's in a coma, or some sort of therapy that's trying to make her deal with her feelings of abandonment. It seems like, for what we've seen so far, Helen either never had the opportunity to confront the people she that abandoned her, or she did take the chance. We don't, for example, see her hunt down her scummy ex-boyfriend who took all the credit for her ideas when he created his artificial intelligence, and let him have it with both barrels (figuratively or literally). As it stands, though, I can't see that she's making much progress. But there's two issues left, if they're ever able to come out.