I hadn’t come across comics by Hans Rickheit until Jamie Smart posted a link on his Twitter to Hans’ current online project, Ectopiary. Hans explains that Ectopiary doesn’t really fit into a specific genre (personally I think it’s a good thing when a book doesn’t fit into a shoebox genre easily), although he’s kind of leaning towards labelling it as science fiction (readers are encouraged to make their own suggestions as the story unfolds). He’s posting a page a week (hoping to go up to a couple a week at some point) and there’s over 30 pages to browse so far, with Hans estimating it may well run to a pretty hefty 600 pages by the time it finishes, although he notes that patience may be required because “the speed of narrative is prodded by the needs of the story and not by the dictates of weekly installments” and that webcomics are a new area for him. With 30 pages out of a projected 600 or so obviously it’s hard to make a call on the comic yet, but what I’ve just been reading I really like – it has a nice Old Haunted House vibe to it and isn’t the artwork just lovely? I mean a page like this is the sort of work I’d expect to see in maybe a Drawn & Quarterly or Fantagraphics book. I’m bookmarking this one to follow (thanks for the tip, Jamie!).
(a page of gorgeous looking comics art from Ectopiary by and (c) Hans Rickheit)
Fri, Jul 30, 2010
Comics and cartoons