REVIEW: Undiscovered Country #8
Undiscovered Country #8 is out September 23, 2020.
By Jacob Cordas — Undiscovered Country #8 finally lets us explore the second region of this nightmarish America and it does not disappoint.
This world is designed to a tee. Every issue has done some of the best implied world building I’ve ever read in a comic. And this issue takes this and turns it up to eleven. Leonardo Marcello Grassi and Giuseppe Camuncoli make the most of every page and panel here. The high tech dystopia our heroes have stumbled their way into is equal parts horrifying and beautiful. The line work is busy but never challenging the slickness of the world.
Matt Wilson does amazing work with the coloring here. Given the unpleasant job of having to make the color white dynamic, he continually finds new ways to make it exciting. Whether it be the white interrupted by thin blues and red or a reconstructed home now white with an ethereal horror to it, every page in this new world brings you deeper in. The few pages that pivot to a more green and brown color scheme end up feeling almost lackluster; not for lack of quality but in their lack of necessary inventiveness.
This all comes together to make the single best image so far in any issue of this comic: an old fashioned jalopy made out of some kind of future material driving down a future road. It seems normal considering the absurdity this comic can often attain. But in the moment, it’s arresting.
On this page in particular the world unfolds around us giving a real sense of what the normal community looks like. The city skyline rises behind it with towers, tubes and a single oddly colored mountain. People sit in their apartments consuming some kind of media. A group of people ride by on an almost Seussian reimagining of public transportation. There’s even a future bicycle that I suppose I could’ve called a unicycle.
The small bits of color that pop up in the world around create a hint of individuality giving the world a Brave New World atmosphere. They all look the same except for small bands. Expression allowed but minimally. You can always express yourself as far as your mind will let you. But if the society puts limits on how far you can imagine…
In regards to the narrative, I’ve written before about Undiscovered County and my previous comments still stand. It just doesn’t fucking matter. I do not care what happens to any of these characters. I often would find myself forgetting who the characters are or their motivations.
But none of that matters because the world is just fun to explore. Undiscovered Country has always captured the best parts of world building with an art team that can live up to whatever idea Charles Soule and Scott Snyder can throw at them. Every page is filled with unique characters, inventive areas and awe inspiring vistas.
I haven’t been this captivated by a world since I first fell in love with Dungeons and Dragons. Hell, I may try to turn this comic into a campaign. There’s enough here to make it worth it to explore to the very end of the road.
Overall: Undiscovered Country #8 is the most visually arresting issue of a series that has prided itself on visual imagination. The coloring especially continually finds creative new ways to make the world alive. 9/10
Review - Undiscovered Country #8
Undiscovered Country #8
Writers: Charles Soule and Scott Snyder
Artist: Leonardo Marcello Grassi and Giuseppe Camuncoli
Colorist: Matt Wilson
Letterer: CRANK!
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99
“UNITY,” Part Two JOURNEY DEEPER INTO THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY...guided by a familiar but unexpected face, our group treks into what was once the Pacific Northwest—a strange land where every living thing is networked together into a bizarre matrix built amid massive monuments to American technology. Hardwired secrets lurk deep in this dark place...
Release Date: September 23, 2020
Buy Digitally: Undiscovered Country #8
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My name is Jacob Cordas (@jacweasel) and I am not qualified to write this.
