‘The Sprawl’ - Volume 1.
Created by Christopher Snowdon.
Released 11th October 2017 - 65 pages - Full Colour - £2.49.
Published by Snowdon Comics.
(Apologies for the quality of some of the panels used in this review. I’m afraid the copy I was sent is quite low-res.)
The Story - ‘A rescue mission is dispatched to the frozen wastes of the south in search of a missing survey team. What they discover instead could unleash unfathomable horrors upon all those who inhabit The Sprawl.’
The Review - I was kindly sent this by the creator last week and thought that I would also have a look at the ComiXology UK page in preparing this review. I was pleased to see that it has received four reviews all giving it a five star recommendation. Surely this must be a perfect comic?! I dove in full of hope.
Firstly, just to get this out of the way, this may be a comic for people involved in the ‘Furry’ hobby/pastime/lifestyle. I say this because not only is it an anthropomorphic comic, a lot of comics are so nothing unusual there, but it’s also from the fourth page onwards full of what I am going to refer to as ‘Cat Lady Cleavage’. I’ll read onwards, all the while chanting to myself, ‘Don’t let this be weird, don’t let this be weird’.
I may have been proved right as straightaway more full frontal tits on animal people. I’m fond of using the term ‘I ain’t no prude’ and seriously I’m not. I read and watched Fritz the Cat years before most comics creators were born and it has it’s place. What people want to do, talk about, draw, read or otherwise is their deal so I’m going to do my utmost to read this without judging. To be fair in his email to me the creator did stress that there would be violence and nudism. He wasn’t lying.
This is an anthropomorphic space adventure story with a large dollop of sex thrown into the mix. The crew of a Surveying Spaceship head off on a mission and end up crashing on an inhospitable ice planet. They find something pretty darn concerning when they finally make it to the base camp. It’s worthy of note from a story point of view that even whilst on a snowy ice cold planet surrounded by buckets of blood and bodily organs the sexy rabbit lady refuses to put a shirt on!
The art is very serviceable on the whole for the story and the different animal people are imagined well and you can see that Christopher has taken time and care in working out character sheets etc. He occasionally leans too heavily on photoshop effects that show a flare effect or a blur at the edge of the panel or in the foreground which can be quite distracting. Christopher also never takes a step backwards in the sexy vibe, forever centre stage are moments of nudity and sex. Even when two people are falling to their possible doom one has his hand solidly in the crease of the other’s ass.
‘The heating isn’t so great in these older birds. So...want some help keeping warm?’ (This feels like the Sci-Fi equivalent of ‘Hi, I’ve come to fix your (insert kitchen/home appliance here). Oh look lady, your clothes have fallen off....’)
The characters also have an animation feel to their look and the bounce (not like that) in their movement. I see from Christopher’s website that he also works within animatics and storyboarding. I would personally like to have seen less of a melodramatic attitude in their behaviour and more of a sense of humour added but that’s just me, but I think it would have improved some moments and added to the depth of characterisation.
I’m going to say that my main problem was with the story. The actual dialogue works reasonably well and you can hear many of the differing characters talking in your head but what is actually happening in the narrative is a little off. Here’s an example. The last act circles around the discovery of a glowing energy ball that has mind controlling powers. This is a fairly sudden reveal and also goes to reveal a character described as dead off panel by another ship member. This in-looked for incident was extremely jarring and had me going ‘Seriously?’ In fact a few of the characters (including the aforementioned Sexy Cat Lady) seem to walk in and out of the story. The writing could do with with longer spent focusing on the players. Make them real in the readers mind so that these readers can use their imagination to understand where, when and what they are meant to be doing even when not shown in the particular panel. I found it hard to keep track of everyone.
The book opens and closes pretty much with the same phrase; ‘This is Tartarus. This is the world we live in’. But that’s plainly not true. Firstly they’ve only just arrived on that world and in both pages at the beginning and then the last page it’s referencing it’s just one person, so where is this ‘We’? I get the feeling that the creator wanted to use that phrase but to me it came over as confusing as at that point there has been no ‘living’ on show.
This has the feel of a book that could have used a much tighter script and a few of the solutions to the story potholes could do with a rethink. The creator needs to reconsider the build of tension and the solutions he comes to in my opinion. It could have done with an editor from conception possibly. Overall it isn’t bad artwise and has some fun moments. I’ll admit that it sat there for a few days and I chose to review some other books first as It’s not my cup of tea - but then not everything will be. It is quite a fast read and you can charge through it to the end. This was released in 2017 so I suspect issue 2/Log 02 may be being worked on as I type. The £2.49 price point is pretty competitive compared to comics with much fewer pages for the same price and the creator needs applauding for keeping it so cheap.
You can find this comic over at ComiXology here https://www.comixology.co.uk/The-Sprawl-Vol-1-Imputation/digital-comic/570781?ref=c2VhcmNoL2luZGV4L3RhYmxldC9zbGlkZXJMaXN0L3RvcFJlc3VsdHNTbGlkZXI
You can find Cristopher Snowdon on Twitter @ChrisSnowdon and head over to his website here http://www.steampowered.net/ This creator has a number of projects under his belt including being lead animator on Nickelodeon’s 2012-2013 series ‘Alien Dawn’.
Many thanks for reading.
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