Reviewer: James Hatton
Story Title: N/A
Written by: Gabriel Benson
Art & Cover by: Jeff Amano
Created by: Jeff Amano
Publisher: Beckett Comics
Beckett is a company that has come out of nowhere recently. First with their FREE COMIC DAY offering of Ballad of Sleeping Beauty and now with their take on not only the superhero genre, but the romance genre with Fade From Grace.
It’s become kind of a thing to mention Beckett when you talk about one of their properties, because it’s obvious that these guys just enjoy comics and don’t want to box themselves in with cookie cutter stories. I have yet to check out Ruule, but between Ballad and this title, Beckett’s sold me on their style and concept.
Story!
John and Grace are in love. Sweet hmm? Nothing could seperate them, not even a fire. John, out of nowhere decides he’s going to go intangible and save her life. Now, given that he had never done that before means that their love means a little something more, now doesn’t it. Have you ever gone completely intangible to save YOUR girlfriend? Didn’t think so.
That was last issue, which blends seamlessly into this issue. (It seems apparent that these guys will be publishing trades) In this issue John goes out for his first night on the job as an official Superdude and stops some badguys. It’s his job, right?
It is saving a small boy from some mugging bullies that he gets his name.
“Fade”
Well now the title of the book sounds a bit more ominous, doesn’t it? I’m asking quite a few more questions in this review than most, but that’s what I like about this title. These guys, Beckett, I mean, really haven’t established their style of books. They’re bright and nice looking, but when a title is solely based around characters named Fade and Grace, your title is called Fade FROM Grace, the book seems taken mostly from Grace’s view point, and she seems both caring for her husband yet sad… it leads me to believe that sometime after the first arc, this book is going to be a tearjerker.
Just my guess, though.
ART!
The cover art is eye catching, which is good, but goes down in with Ultimate titles as ‘Completely Unnecessary’. Just a clear shot of Fade in his brand new costume. Since we’ve never seen him in his costume, we’ll let it go. Beckett’s covers are enticingly bright and clearly visable from across a room, but they are notoriously showing themselves as completely random. Random though, in a non Dave McKean kind of way. I don’t know what that means.
The art of the book is blocky and squarish. Now on the top layer that might sound like a bad thing, but it’s not. It honestly comes across as a clear and crisp voice of it’s own. Panels don’t have black lined borders, and where it sometimes is a bit obvious how much of this book is created on a computer – it doesn’t matter. The faces, emotion, and feelings of each panel are clear and concise.
OVERALL!
This book has secrets it wants to tell us. It isn’t a straightforward superhero title. It isn’t a straightforward romance title. It’s a hybrid of the two and is doing so amazingly. If I was to give it one big gripe, it’s that it goes too quickly. It’s 23 pages long, but since each page runs only 3 or 4 panels it goes way too quick.
Fade From Grace is going to be a property that people talk about in the future, and by the end of this issue I recognized that the trade is going to be a book I suggest to everyone.
