Weapon-X is truly a comic masterwork of pacing and impressionism. Windsor-Smith is completely in tune with what he is attempting and still pushing himself further along with the medium in ways that I rarely experience.
Let’s start with taking a look at the use of lettering with this panel from Marvel Comics Presents #76:
Typically a coming reads left to right and you work your way down the page…right? That’s how I’ve always read comics so that must be the only way. But, here we have BWS doing the obvious and making it genius. He leads your eye. Down and up the page. You feel the rhythm in your head. Your brain makes it feel natural.
The first time I read this page I was thrown off. The narration wasn’t making sense. Until I stepped back and took the page in as a whole…and shit it’s marvelous.
There is a great degree of confidence in the reader and just general bravado that Windsor-Smith displays by choosing this. The whole story is filled with lettering like this.
This is something that only comics can do.
And no one else seems to even try it.
And comics in the right hands can make magic. These chapters are 8 pages a piece and in that time they create this tense atmosphere of experimentation on many levels. Both for the scientists and Windsor-Smith.
Now let’s talk about Marvel Comic Presents #75:
This is really where the whole comic ups the ante and turns into a truly amazing piece of art. In this issue the Professor and Dr. Cornelius discuss Logan’s attack and what the Professor’s plan for him is…while Logan, bound, wriggles on the floor and attempts to escape.
Again, look at how the speech bubbles flow with the conversation and the art. Your eyes are led expertly through this.
Windsor-Smith has incredible rhythm. The scratchy art, with the coloring, and then the lettering create an amazing sense of atmosphere combined with dread.
As readers we know Wolverine. We know the X-Men. We know mutants. But now we see Logan in this mad scientist-body horror story that makes you feel even more deeply for the character.
Played out over the course of the issue we see Logan try to free himself from his shackles. Logan is mindless at this point. He is just an animal to the Professor. But, there is an inherent need for freedom in him.
NOTE: This sequence is spilt over several pages. I combined it to show the movement and the flow of the pacing.
But, as I said about the Professor, he only seems Logan as an animal.
And when an animal tries to break free this is how he treats them…
I like to think that every time I sit down to write anything from comics to screenplays, that I am trying to test myself and push harder on the conventions of narrative.
At least I try.
Devouring the work of BWS has shown me how little I know. There is so much more to explore with this beautiful medium of picture and words and more people should study his work.
Comics are a unique art with the way it ebbs and flows with rhythm. Comics are ingested by the brain and the eye at the readers own pace. You read, you take in the art, you piece the story together page by page. But a true masterwork sets the pacing for you. With Weapon-X everything on the page is working in such harmony that your brain takes it all in as your eyes flow from panel to panel.
Comics have tricks that only comics can do…it is time we remember that.
In other news be sure to sign up for my next comic project on Kickstarter a 60 page graphic novel about a serial killer moonlighting as a hitman for the Yakuza. We launch August 1st and you won’t want to miss out!
Excellent breakdown man! Love the thought that you put into this. Can't wait for the next one. Congrats on all the success dude!