Nomen Omen #4 // Review
Rebecca Kumar learns a lot about the world of magic. A lot of what she learns about the world of magic happens to involve how little she knows about the world of magic. It’s all tied-up in memories she doesn’t have as writer Marco B. Bucci’s Nomen Omen reaches its fourth issue. There’s a hell of a lot of fantastic conversation going on in an issue that is drawn by Jocopo Camagni. The revelations about the past would seem kind of silly in the fourth issue of a series that has already been so very, very bogged-down in world-building. Still, Bucci’s poetic dialogue and Camagni’s equally beautiful visuals keep the series suitably dreamlike as it glides through its fourth outing.
At the opening of the issue, Rebecca Kumar is talking with Lady Macbeth. Not literally necessarily...but she IS talking to someone who says that she identifies as the character. In a world of magic mingling with other things in the modern world, it is maddeningly difficult to tell who speaks the truth, who lies, and who might be some strange figment of a fraction of a psychotic break with things. Elsewhere Rebecca finds herself home the next day surrounded by family members who are concerned about her. They don’t know the full extent of what she’s going through, and she’s not about to tell them.
Bucci alternates the narrative of this issue between the fantastic and the earthbound. The opening conversation with Lady Macbeth glides out into dreamy fantasy onstage that collides into a morning at home. Then Rebecca spots a spirit of great wisdom who can answer only three of her questions before she is carted off to be with her less magical friends at the issue’s end. There’s a beauty about the alternation that feels as dreamlike as the magic and mystery coursing through Bucci’s plot. There’s real poetry to his dialogue that keeps the plot-heavy issue from dragging the chapter to the bottom of the page.
Camagni’s work continues to impress. The clean lines of the characters are seen through Becky’s eyes in black and white, which delivers a high-resolution feel to the conversations she’s having with fantastical people. The interplay between the colors of magic and the black and white of social interaction continues to provide a sense of depth to it all. Camagni’s real accomplishment this issue lies in Rebecca’s face. She’s going through a great deal and a great deal of frustration this issue. A rich complexity of emotions plays out on Rebecca’s face. Camagni is also framing panels in a way that is subtly sympathetic to Rebecca’s perspective. It’s very emotionally sensitive art.
Having firmly established some of the backbone of the world of Nomen Omen, Bucci and Camagni are going to have to start advancing the plot beyond mere conversation with the fantastic if the series is to pull out of the gravity of its own introspection. Thus far, it’s been really fun getting to know Rebecca. It would be really cool to actually go out and...y’know...do something.
