Something Epic #2 // Review
Danny is being driven by his aunt. It’s kind of a pivotal moment in the life of the 14-year-old kid. He can’t seem to focus on it, though. Too busy being distracted by things that aren’t really there even though they are. He lives his life in the presence of so many other worlds, but he’s hopelessly bound to this one. He will find out a bit more about his relationship with this world in Something Epic #2. Writer/artist Szymon Kudrański continues an interesting multi-faceted look into a single psyche and the worlds that it touches.
The birds are singing for Danny’s mom. One of them looks like Pavarotti. The other looks like Slash from Guns N’ Roses. Danny’s mom is in the hospital. She’s got cancer. Danny can’t focus on it. A dying pro wrestler wanders out of the morgue. Christ suffers on the cross. Leave the hospital, and Danny spots a one-eyed teddy bear biker. Naturally, Danny’s not that interested in the cartoon that his aunt suggests, so they go see a superhero movie. Later on, Danny is witnessing a battle between a U.S. superhero and a manga character. His mother is dying, and Danny? He’s all over the place.
Kudrański weaves a narrative in the interplay between fantasy and reality. The deeper concerns of a young teenage kid hit the page at odd angles as he tries to deal with the major life changes that he’s being forced through. The wild swings between funny animal cartoons and superhero action and horror articulate the turbulent inner life of a kid who is in a really, really tumultuous and erratic time in his life. Though it’s an intriguing read, there isn’t nearly enough of a connection between the different worlds within Danny and his own personal psyche. As of the second issue, there’s still too much of a distance between Danny’s worlds. It looks good, but it doesn’t feel thematically integrated.
The story is an opportunity for Kudrański to show off his versatility as an artist. He shows a range of subtle nuances between horror, drama, and technicolor comedy. The specific distinction between manga action and American superhero action might not have the kind of modulation it could have had on the page, but Kudrański does manage to do quite a lot with the internal life of Danny as it cascades across the page in a dreamy nightmare. There is some absence of stylistic flair for specific elements of the individual genres and sub-genres of the story that Kudrański is bringing to the page, but the story remains solidly entertaining throughout the second issue.
Kudrański is taking his time with the story. There may be a lot of jumping around through the patchwork psyche of Danny, but there’s a definite rhythm to his progression through the major events of the series thus far. If Kudrański were to move any more quickly through Danny’s life than he has been in the course of the first couple of issues, Danny’s creative life would feel more or less totally indecipherable. The erratic nature of Danny’s interior life demands a slow and determined march. Given enough time, Kudrański could build Something Epic into a major coming-of-age story.
