REVIEW: Monstro Mechanica #1

Writer & Co-creator: Paul Allor
Artist & Co-creator: Chris Evenhuis
Colorist: Sjan Weijers
Letterer: Paul Allor
Review: Madman

I had no clue what this comic was about when I snatched it off the shelf at Comics Cubed in Kokomo, Indiana. All I knew was that it was written by Paul Allor, a local guy, so I was going to support it for at least the first issue. Truth be told, I don’t buy all the books he works on such as G.I. Joe or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as I just don’t have any interest in that subject matter. I have supported his creator owned books like Tet, Strange Nation, and OrcGirl, as well as the books he has done for Marvel including Uncanny Inhumans and Secret Empire: Brave New World.

At first glance I thought the cover was pretty bland. Not the pencils so much as the color just didn’t do it for me, and I wasn’t in all that big a hurry to actually read the book. As it were it ended up on the bottom of my, “to read”, pile.

Even though my biggest criticism about the book after the first couple pages continued to be the coloring work, by the time I had finished the issue SJan’s art had grown on me. After going back and just focusing on the art and color, I realize I must have just been in a bad mood or something, because I found I liked more pages than I disliked. Mainly I think it was her use of large amounts of the same color that turned me off, but on my second read I found it actually worked well within the context  of the story.

Since I’m already talking about the artwork I’ll go ahead and mention Chris Evenhuis’s pencils are incredibly detailed. This is evident on the characters facial features, the backgrounds, and just about everything else. My only complaint would be the head on the automation.

Monstro Mechanica is a fun look into the life of Leonardo Da Vinci, his apprentice, and this automation, his newest invention, that may or may not be becoming sentient. If the first issue is hint of things to come there will be plenty of political intrigue and action, not to mention more Da Vinci.
And who doesn’t find Da Vinci interesting as hell...