Originally posted on Irish Comic News (15/Feb/2018)

Written by Ram V.
Line art by Devmalya Pramanik.
Colour art by Dearbhla Kelly and Alex Sollazzo.
Letters by Aditya Bidikar.
Design by Dearbhla Kelly.

The Midnight Event has changed the world. People are doing what they can to survive in this harsher world. People like Jack Krynznan, who has made his way to Aquarius Point in the hope of gaining entry to Paradiso. The cost of passage isn’t cheap and there’s no guarantee of success as Paradiso has sentries protecting it from would-be trespassers.

Issue one puts the reader right in the middle of things. The writing drops nuggets of information that Jack and the rest of the cast exist in as part of the story. There’s no info-dump at the open of the story to give the reader the lay of the land. The reader is trusted to be able to put the pieces together through dialogue as well as the condition of the locations. The lack of information of about Paradiso (as well as the sentries that protect it) makes it a really enticing story to stick with.

With the story set in such a grim location, the art team has their work cut out for them. The characters all show signs of wear’n’tear of life in areas outside Paradiso. The line art also shows the scale of disrepair of the buildings surrounding Paradiso. The colours give a gritty texture to the locations that nicely compliments the mood the line art is going for. Whether it’s scenes from the top of skyscrapers, the refuge camp outside of Paradiso or action scenes, the art has a great look to it. And if future issues build upon the standard of issue one then this is a series I’m really going to enjoy looking at.

The text throughout the comic is well presented. Captions and dialogue placed in good locations that draw the eye through the page in a very natural flow. I liked the use of the blue text to denote the shift in time and/or location. It immediately tells the user that they’ve moved into another scene. Sound effects are well done with the use of a faded text on sequence of “thump!” to indicate the earlier ones sound was fading away.

Paradiso has a very capable creative team working together on the comic. The story and art provides some interesting ideas, locations and characters that makes this a very promising start to the series.