Saturday Splash Page #35

 

"Crash Position," in White Lily #5, by Preston Poulter (writer), Jake Bilbao (artist), Kumar? (inker), Alonso Espinoza (colorist), Taylor Esposito (letterer)

The story of World War II Soviet ace Lilya Litvak and her friend/at least for one night love interest Katya Budanova, from their days as flight instructors for the male pilots, through their being assigned to combat units, their triumphs and losses.

Both Lilya and Katya are in an unpleasant circumstance. Lilya's a Polish Jew, so while she's got zero love for the Nazis, life in the USSR isn't exactly a bed of roses, either. Katya's Ukrainian, so again, someone who might not have a lot of love for Stalin or the Soviets. But, of course, they have to play at being loyal citizens, even when their superiors insult, degrade or generally act like they should be grateful living under Soviet rule.

Lilya is the main character, as even much of the time spent on Katya is focused on her attraction to Lilya. It's Katya who gives Lilya the white lily that becomes her call sign. And for the most part, Lilya is the one who drives the story. She's the one who mocks the male pilots they're training for being cowards or throwing up at the sight of Nazi planes, who out-flies her flight instructor when they're given the chance to fly real combat aircraft. Lilya is the one shot down over Stalingard and has to make it back to the base (though Poulter glosses over the particulars of that).

Katya is mostly carried along in Lilya's wake. Not that she isn't a good pilot herself, but the story doesn't give the impression Katya was excited at the prospect of fighting on the front lines, so much as she was good enough to get the opportunity and it would keep her close to Lilya. A lot of her page time is devoted to worrying about Lilya, or being disappointed that Lilya is attracted to the male captain that commands their squadron.

The first two issues were drawn by Lovalle Davis, who unfortunately passed away shortly after finishing the second issue. Jake Bilbao had been working on covers for the series, and took over interior duties as well. Both artists took an unusual approach during the air combat scenes. They essentially drew from the bottom of the page to the top. It allowed for more a widescreen feel, I guess, but you had to turn the book on its side. They also tended to intersperse smaller panels through the page, and often drew those in the shape of the plane's canopy or crosshairs. That was a nice touch, because it let them give a sense of the scale of the battle, just how many planes were up there at once, but made sure the reader didn't lose track of the main characters.

The mini-series could easily have been six issues, considering issue 5 is nearly 40 pages itself, but it fits with the overall arc of the story. When Lilya experienced a loss and considered ending it all, she was able to go forward out of desire to keep fighting Nazis. Once she's gone, Katya is basically playing out the string.

What I Bought 7/6/2021 - Part 2

Somewhere along the line in May, the fourth issue of White Lily came out and I missed it. I only figured that out when the fifth and final issue came out at the end of June, so I'm just going to review both today.

White Lily #4 and 5, by Preston Poulter (writer), Jake Bilbao (penciler), Kumar (inker?), Alonso Espinoza (colorist), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - I know it takes some work to heat up engines in a Russian winter, but this seems excessive.

These last two issues cover a lot of ground. Lilya's fiance, Captain Alexi, is shot down over Stalingrad. Unlike Lilya, he doesn't survive. She goes into a depression, reaching the point where she tries to light her fighter on fire while she's inside it. She decides to focus on killing the enemy instead. Death will find her on its own soon enough. Once the Nazis surrender at Stalingrad, Lilya and Katya are sent to be flight instructors. Katya's happy to be out of the line of fire (and have more chances to woo Lilya), but Lilya misses combat. 

The two of them do have one night of passion, but Lilya gets her wish and is assigned to a frontline squadron at Kursk. Katya, loyal friend/pining lover, goes against her instincts and follows. They're starting from square one almost in having to prove to the commander that women can be successful combat pilots (even though both of them are aces already), but they pull off their first mission, which had killed the last four teams that tried it. Eventually though, Lilya's time is up, when she runs afoul of two Nazi aces at once. Katya has a depressing visit home for leave to try and deal with her grief, and returns to the front. As she puts it, she would 'rather fight the Nazis than her mother. At least fighting them would serve some purpose.' She finds the two aces and kills one, but the other gets her. It's unclear if she at least managed to shoot him down. I think they may have partially collided, but we don't see his plane go spinning off into the horizon, so I don't know.

There's a lot in there I didn't cover. The last two issues are almost 65 pages combined. They could have made this a six-issue mini-series and I wouldn't have batted an eye. Lilya being a harsh training instructor. A sequence after Stalingrad where all their male wingmen start treating them like just sexual objects again. Which is a depressing recurring thing. They get some respect when the heat is on, but as soon as things start looking up, they're dismissed again. A bit during Kursk where Lilya and their Captain share Polish and Russian folktales. Katya doesn't get to share one from Lithuania until it's too late for Lilya to hear it.

The section where Lilya falls into depression after Alexi's death, Bilbao uses mostly smaller panels in rows, to show the progression of time. For example, three panels showing a steadily increasing pile of cigarette butts beside her bed. There's also a bit where the speech balloons of anyone speaking around her are just filled with squiggles to show she's not registering what's being said.

I think Poulter should have held off on the dialogue in Katya's death scene. The last few panels, as she's reaching for a blood-stained white lily she placed in her cockpit are kind of marred by all the "GHEH gheh gahuuuuuuuuh" sound effects for death gurgles. I think the fact we saw her take several rounds to the chest four pages earlier and the way she slumps over in the last panel would tell us she was on her last legs well enough. Bilbao's art could convey what needed to be well enough on its own.

Bilbao also manages to shift his art style a bit for the folktale parts, especially for the Captain's one panel story about the bird trying to touch the sun, and Katya's about the girl whose evil stepmother makes her ask the Baba Yaga for the secret of fire. The latter especially, he mimics the sort of medieval storybook picture feel for most of it. Not so much the very end, when the girl has become fire herself and returns for revenge, but Katya's also clearly thinking of Lilya throughout, and especially at that point, so it fits. Reality intrudes on the fantasy.

I really enjoyed this whole mini-series.

What I Bought 5/19/2021 - Part 1

I almost found every comic I went looking for this week. The only one I missed was Runaways, which was not the one I expected to whiff on. But it all fell out rather neatly because we can look at two third issues today, and two second issues on Monday.

Black Knight #3, by Si Spurrier (writer), Sergio Davila (penciler), Sean Parsons (inker), Arif Prianto and Chris Sotomayor (colorists), Cory Petit (letterer) - How will Thor escape from his prison within the Ebony Blade? What's that? You say he can create portals with Mjolnir? Never mind then.

Dane, Jacks, and Elsa go hunting for the Ebony Chalice and end up in some mystical wasteland where they encounter Mordred and his sidekick. Elsa's having a lot of fun trying to kill the sidekick while Dane and Mordred take swings futilely at each other. The two of them are interrupted by the land itself creating phantoms that tell them what they want to hear. Mordred shakes of Faux-Arthur's love first, and so Elsa splats Dane's head with her shotgun so Mordred can't swipe the sword while he's confused. Dane regenerates, extremely angry, and Mordred bails. Meanwhile, Merlin's old raven shows Jacks what happened with Sir Percy fought a younger Thor, and then leads her to the Chalice. Which Dane is going to drink from, which Mordred is very excited about.

Given my nature to suspect cutesy surprise reveals and double-crosses, I'm half-expecting the raven to be behind all this. Bitter that it was cast aside into this place by Merlin because 'a wizard's familiar smacks excessive of the pagan ways.' Probably not, although the notion of the raven wielding the sword, the shield, the dagger, etc. is amusing. I'm also wondering if Dane gaining understanding would make him incapable of wielding the Ebony Blade. Mordred figures Dane can't let himself be happy because he won't be able to use the sword, so he at least wants to understand. If he understands, whatever he's going to understand, does that cut him off at the knees?

 

Prianto and Sotomayor go for brighter colors in the flashback to Thor's run-in with Percy than in the rest of the book. Granted, that part is apparently under bright sunlight, but there's also an element that things started out well, that Camelot was a bright and honorable place once, but now it was all leading to a dark and dreary end, full of fog and ruin like the place Dane, Elsa, and Jacks spend the issue. The blade drew out Percy's worst habits and he became something awful. If Dane keeps on, he'll end up the same way presumably.

White Lily #3, by Preston Poulter (writer), Jake Bilbao (penciler), Kumar (inker), Alonso Espinoza (colorist), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - I'm honestly guessing on everything past Bilbao, because the credits on the inside cover haven't changed from the first issue's.

Back in action, Lilya gets shot down and has to bail out into Stalingrad. She manages to lure a Nazi chasing her into someone else's grenade trap, and spends the night with a grieving mother who eats bread made of sawdust and has left her deceased son frozen outside. I guess digging through frozen soil would be difficult. Making it back to base, she's ready for more, while Katya and Alexi worry. Alexi worries so much he sort of proposes, and they end up as wingmen. Alexi's old wingman, the captain of the squadron, ends up flying with Katya. And the issue more or less ends after another mission when a downed Naiz pilot is brought in asking the meet the flier who shot him down. He doesn't believe it was a woman, and he's less happy it was a Jewish woman. Well tough shit, Fritz, count yourself lucky they left you alive long enough to satisfy your curiosity.

I'm surprised Poulter didn't spend more time on Lilya making it back to base. The woman who shelters her for the night says she doesn't know how Lilya will get across the Volga to her squadron, and we never find out. The story just cuts to the airfield and Katya being overjoyed when Lilya shows up in the back of a truck. Maybe it wasn't that interesting and Lilya made it uneventfully, but it seems odd to have a character specifically wonder about that and then just gloss over it entirely.

So, with Lovalle Davis' passing, Jake Bilbao, who has been drawing the covers thus far, steps in as interior artist as well. He joins the ranks of Harley Quinn artist Chad Hardin as someone whose work I originally encountered in the Bloodrayne comics I was buying the first few years this blog existed. Unexpected encounter, to be sure. His lines are a bit softer than Davis', characters' faces are rounder. Lilya's hair looks like it got styled a bit more. The inking and shading on faces is cut back a lot, especially for the women. I guess they look prettier. Depends on your aesthetic preferences. 

 

Though there aren't as many in this issue, the flipping of the page on its side for the air combat scenes continues. So was that always something Poulter wanted for the more widescreen effect, or was it Davis' idea and Bilbao is trying to maintain consistency?