Originally posted on Irish Comic News (14/Aug/2017)

Written by Michael Gordon.
Line art by Henrique Pereira.
Colour art by Jan Wijngaard.
Letters by Jim Campbell.
Designed by Rolands Kanins.
Cover art Federico De Luca.
Edited by Neil Gibson.

From the (successful) Kickstarter campaign page:

TRANSDIMENSIONAL is a 4-issue sci-fi/horror miniseries, which will be published as a full graphic novel by TPub Comics, who have given the world other dark delights such as THEATRICS, TORTURED LIFE and TURNCOAT. These were all successfully funded using Kickstarter, and I hope Transdimensional will follow suit.

The story focusses on Deacon Price, an emotionally broken underwater archaeologist who charters an expedition, under false pretences, to a downed Soviet submarine that’s been missing for decades. What he and his crew find there will not only put their lives at risk, but also the lives of everyone they’ve ever known! The story gets progressively darker, more intense and horrifying as it goes along, leading to a gory and harrowing conclusion.

As mentioned in the Kickstarter pitch above this is the first of a four issue sci-fi/horror mini-series. Being that it’s the first of four issues, most of the comic is spent getting the reader familiar with the lead character Deacon Price. Written by Michael Gordon, issue one does a good job of setting the tone of the mini-series. Price is struggling to keep things together due to nightmares he experiences any time he drifts off to sleep. Add to that his daughter suffering with serious medical problems and the impending submarine voyage could drive Price to breaking point.

The story itself is the type of story I enjoy. An abandoned craft (submarine this time) is discovered and a team is assembled to explore the craft with no knowledge of the horrors that await them. Price having an agenda of his own driving his desire to get to the submarine beyond simple exploration or recovery of the craft. It’s mentioned in at one point that getting down to the submarine will bring Price one step closer to curing whatever it is that ails his daughter. All of which makes me curious how things play out for Price.

The artwork by Pereira (line art) and Wijngaard (colour art) really compliments the story that’s being told. The moments of horror in issue one have a bit more punch due to the sense of the ‘every day’ that is conveyed by the art in the rest of the comic. The line and colour art make for easy readability of the comic with a flow to the panels that is easy followed. The horror aspects of the comic are well done and definitely create an interest in how the story will progress over the remaining three issues. Also can’t talk about the art without saying how much I like the artwork for the cover by Federico De Luca. It’s a really eye-catching piece which is exactly what you want on the front of your comic.

Jim Campbell provides the lettering. Captions, sound effects and dialogue are all well placed to avoid obscuring the characters of interest in the panels. There’s no problem with readability of the text either. One thing I did like was the very straight lines on ‘KRAK’ whereas ‘KRNNCCH’ had a more brittle shape to the letters. These simple flourishes to the lettering on those two sound effects just made the sound effects work better for me.

Issue one of Transdimensional raises questions about much of what happens in the story that should be entice readers to follow the story through the next three issues. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s a good looking comic.