Maria Llovet Porcelain #3
Ablaze Publishing 2021
By Maria Llovet
Lettered by Saida Temofonte
With her new ally, Axel, by her side, Beryl ventures deeper into the nightmarish Dollhouse. As they travel along, they are faced with sad realities and horrors that neither are fully prepared to encounter. Things may seem hopeless and they descend further and further, but at least they have each other.
This is an absolutely stunning book. I am always amazed by the sheer amount of talent that Maria has and seeing her write and draw this to the extent that we see this is utterly astounding. How we are able to see the story unfold the way that we do takes us on this journey with them and makes you almost feel like you are a part of the story and it’s delightful. It is amazing how much you can learn about the characters through what we are seeing within their journey together and the choices which they make. The realisations that they come to they come to naturally through trial and error and I think many folks would have a harder time realising this as quickly as we see here and it’s really a strong trait to possess.
I’m in love with the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exquisitely. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter really helps to bring their personalities to life more fully. It isn’t as easy as I make that sound because we see a lot of visuals and less words than usual. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story the more we want to see, learn and know.
I appreciate the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. How the layers here open up new avenues to be explored, whether they will be explored or not, add this great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. As the two continue to travel this path together their fates feel more intertwined with one another as if they were meant to be there together. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably rendered.
The interiors here are just bloody brilliant. The linework is utterly exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to bring about this level & quality of work in the attention to detail are absolutely breathtaking. How we see backgrounds being utilised throughout is mind blowing in their scope as they enhance and expand the moments. 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 to the story is magnificently rendered. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show such a stellar understanding for how colour works. The creativity and imagination that we see throughout is mindbogglingly gorgeous.
This series just gets more and more involved with each new issue and it really takes us through this story in some horrifyingly magical ways. It has that haunting beauty where you don’t know what is going to happen and if it’s going to be positive or negative for the girls. This is something that keeps us on our toes and it really manages to keep every page feeling fresh and unpredictable. The writing is phenomenal and the characterisation is brilliantly rendered while the interiors can tell the story all on their own. If you aren’t reading this then you really are doing yourself a disservice.
About the Creator
Steven Leitman
Just me talking about the comics I enjoy reading, ones that you might not know exist and spotlighting the indie creators that excite me.
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