Last month, artist J. Paul Shiek shared his take on Sean Lewis and Hayden Sherman’s Thumbs #3 and #4. Now, he’s back to finish the job, giving us his artists’ perspective on Thumbs #5, the series finale.

By J. Paul Schiek — I’ll always have a special place in my heart for the sort of classic-but-wholly-unintelligible books, like Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Apart from the appealing premise of an aged and tired Bruce Wayne returning from retirement, the book is probably better known for its (at the time, at least, if not now) envelope-pushing visuals. Bearing that in mind, I had had an itch in the back of my head each and every time I picked up an issue of the Sean Lewis-penned Thumbs, with art by the incomparable Hayden Sherman. Or, indeed, when I picked up a previously read issue for a second glance or full immersion. While comprised of its own characters and settings, and festooned with its own directions and ideas, Thumbs, to eschew any undue comparisons, is not the logical successor to DKR…it is actually a usurper that steals its throne entirely.

Perhaps that’s all a bit hyperbolic. After all, Thumbs, both the title and the eponymous troubled hero, are not as well known to us as someone like Batman. In fact, I’m sure to many readers, the character Thumbs and his story are completely unknown. My argument for the supremacy of Thumbs, however, springs from Hayden Sherman’s staggering visuals, which wrap and helix around Lewis’ narrative in one of the most beautifully discordant harmonies I’ve ever witnessed, really, in any medium…be it comics, film or television. Perhaps that reads as a compliment of the work, which it most certainly is, but it is also just honest observation. 

This story itself ends at the only logical place it could have. A new dominant society that has destroyed and hidden away “tech” in a society-wide knee jerk response to online bullying and teen suicides. Lewis taps into some very real and very timely territory to build the overall motivation of his dystopian society. As the story builds to its conclusion with Mommy reigniting the hidden tech and networking it into a sort of omniscient army, the powers that be soon find themselves relegated to the powers that aren’t. Thumbs #5 carries over the same tones as the previous four chapters of this tale, while also giving us both narrative and visual explosions at heretofore unseen, and even unimagined, levels. Sherman’s art is a lovely vexation of wiry, overlapping panels and visuals that really stretch the comic book medium to new limits. His monochromatic use of sunburn reds and grays still manages to describe a very colorful and complex world in stunning detail. My prior comparison to DKR becomes more apparent when analyzing it against Sherman’s page and panel composition. It’s chaos. Beautifully executed and directed chaos, but unlike DKR, the inlaid story pulls at our heartstrings rather than our headstrings. Thumbs taps into our very current fears as humans in an age where the exponential growth of information has achieved the omniscient and immaterial status of steam. We have access to people and emotions at a level never before achieved, and maybe not even imagined. 

I could go on and on saying nice things about this book. If I have a criticism of it, it would merely be for the mostly unexplained but nonetheless welcome revival of a character who we’d been led to assume was safely, and sadly dead. The ending operates on the principal contrast of loss and gain, that one cannot have one without suffering the other. My five floppies of this series will always have a special place in my personal comics collection. To summarize though, Thumbs is a gorgeous combination of the explored themes of the original Matrix movie and Ready Player One. As I’ve already explicitly said or implied, this series is one of the greats. Extending this as more opinion than fact — though I do believe the two are in agreement — I believe this is a perfect series. Therefore, I give this book, both Thumbs #5 and the preceding four issues, a perfect 10 out of 10. Excellent work from all involved with this transformation.

J. Paul Schiek is a freelance comic artist. He’s currently hard at work on a number of projects, but always looking for more.