It’s that time of day, the same as any other where you’d rather be doing anything else than what you’re doing at that moment. But there’s hope. The internet is filled with websites of comic book writers and artists who are telling stories through the webcomic format. Webcomics are essentially comics that first are on your laptop or tablet and then eventually make it into print form. For those searching for new narratives the world wide web isn’t the wild west it used to be. There’s some good work being done out there and Neil Gibson is doing his part to keep this movement going.
In the Gibson’s webcomic actor Rudy Burns is living it up in 1920s New York. He has good looks, a rich girlfriend and a thriving Broadway career. One night stumbling out of a speakeasy he gets attacked and he winds up looking like Boris Karloff in full makeup. But that’s barely the beginning of this inventive story. With a page uploaded on the site every week you slowly see Rudy transform himself. As a reader you also find out he has held a myriad of secrets even before he got beat up. What’s more you wonder what else writer Gibson has in store for the man who constantly needs to reinvent himself.
Reading this story is compelling. The style is reminiscent of an era when a reader would have to wait for the next installment of a story. It was the way Charles Dickens told several of his stories. You may peruse a bookstore and see these giant books for $2.00, but when they were originally published it was in periodicals and each excerpt was a cliffhanger. Similar to when television was barraged with soap operas, you tuned in every Monday because your favorite character had just gotten shot and you just had to find out if he was going to live or die. Well ‘Theatrics’ takes advantage of that curiosity. Each panel reveals a bit more about Rudy and the emotional rollercoaster ride the reader is taken on never lets up. You immediately become fervently invested in this man’s life. Whether it’s his best friend telling him to pull himself together or seeing the emotional fallout of having to start over yet again, you can’t help but Rudy and you desperately want him to make it. You get the feeling that maybe this time he won’t take his new lease on life for granted. Or you may have a newfound sense of disappointment.
What excites the reader even more than the prose should be the artwork. Fight scenes have fluid movement. There’s a feeling that these could be real people because the style is reminiscent of realistic characters in real settings. When you see Rudy’s face after his attack, it’s tough to look at those panels straight on. It is brutal, not only that but you can feel the pulse of the city. It’s as if everything is alive. At times the art looks more like a photograph capturing a moment. That only goes to show that meticulous detail is involved in all aspects of this comic.
Essentially, what the daytime serial was a generation ago, the webcomic is the medium many are turning to for solid stories with rich, complex characters. You’re able to read the entire series so far or read a panel each week that it’s added. Either way you’ll find yourself living for the next episode.
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