Locust #2

Locust #2

Scout Comics 2021

Written by Massimo Rosi

Illustrated by Alex Nieto

Lettered by Mattia Gentili

New York seems to be going crazy. During the Great Transformation, many people turned into uncontrolled, humanoid locusts thirsting for flesh and violence. While escaping through the streets, Max and his elderly mother are swept away by a swarm of giant locusts. However, at the last minute someone saves their lives and takes them to safety-will they be friends or has the situation just gotten worse?

This is a crazy take on what is to become a post apocalyptic event if ever I saw one. Turning into locusts isn’t something I think anyone else would have thought of and that Massimo did is one of the reasons I love his understated genius. The way that this issue jumps around from three years ago, two years ago and present day it smartly taken advantage of to really showcase the journey Max and his mother have been taking since world around them changed and they’ve had blindly run and try to avoid all the madness of which they have no idea what caused it what is going on. It is so well crafted and so well executed in how we see this journey and I applaud the work Massimo is doing here.

I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations they encounter is magnificent in how fleshes these characters out into real people. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story we’re caught up in this giant swarm fascinated by everything we see.

I am very much enjoying how this is structured and how we see the layers within the story continue to grow, strengthen and emerge anew as the avenues that are open or opening are explored. The layers are where the revelations and twists we see take place alongside the characterisation and whether they work with the main arc of swirl around it they add depth and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is perfectly achieved.

I like the interiors here and the people are great as we see faces, facial expressions and body language that furthers the characterisation. I wish there was a bit tighter detail in things like the cars but that’s alright because the linework is clean, crisp and strong. So how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail work is extremely nice to see. That we see backgrounds utilised, we could always use more, is great and how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope is well rendered. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a talented eye for storytelling. The creativity and imagination is lovely and i do wish the locusts were a lot more horrifying to look at with more detail in them but it works nonetheless. The colour work we see through the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work add that ambience, mood, tone and feel that brings out the creepy factor big time.

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This is a great original concept and it’s execution is fantastic as we see the effect without the cause. Personally I like not knowing because that engages the reader into using their own creativity and imagination and that’s a powerful tool in its own right. I can’t wait to see what’s coming next for Max and his mum, but with Massimo at the wheel anything and I literally mean anything can happen.