Comic Book Review – From Blood

From Blood, Part One

Created by James Whynot

Cosmic Times

Written by:

James Whynot, Zach Bassett with Martin Pierro

Pencils by: Zach Bassett

Inks by: James Whynot and Zach Bassett

Lettering by: Michael Moore 

Review by: Whisper Glover 

Overall Rating:  7/10

Reading through ‘From Blood’ is one of those special comic books that take you somewhere else and have you on the edge of your seat. If you’re a avid comic book reader, you always get sucked in the story and this is one of those that brings you in right away. From the creative minds of James Whynot, Zach Bassett and Martin Pierro, this story has its own flair that we don’t usually have in comic books. It has something for everyone in its pages. For years I’ve been reading comic books and when a comic book can make you have empathy, it has done its job.

One thing that is essential to the comic book is the images that tell the story. With each line drawn across the blank canvas, the writers work comes to life in the mind of the reader and artist. This book has heart but it also has some other scenes that almost have a haunting contrast. In the Alternative cover, the lead male character ’27′ stands with people around him and covered in blood. Now touching on the characters, each of the main characters is quite distinct and the contrast between them is also pretty cool. We have our lead female, Ashley, who is a normal size woman so about 5’4″ or 5’5″ and then we look to her patient, “27″ and this man is very large in contrast with her. Touching on Ashley, from a female prospective, I love the fact that she isn’t this stereotypical female character that everyone has seen in comic books. If you’re someone that likes to read about a woman with an intellectual sexuality, than this is the book for you. In the book, she is shown to wear flats rather than putting her into large heels which is awesome to me because it gives a chance for anyone reading to actually picture her easier than that of a woman of 5’7″ in heels; it gives realism to the comic book that I love.

Throughout the comic book, we see that the artist use things like facial expressions to get across emotions, especially with patient “27″. Ashley has more expressions than that of “27″ and I love the two and how they are basically opposites. Besides just the facial expressions and the physical differences, we can see the actual difference of their life and it goes through many analogies in the book.

One thing that I highly enjoyed was the analogies. A lot of symbolism is in the book and one of my favorite scenes is when the two main characters are moving magnets on the refrigerator and it shows what they feel without them actually saying it. I love that, when an author and artist puts together their heads and uses more than just words to show emotions from the characters.

In the art, there is sometimes a lack of continuity in the faces but it doesn’t subtract from the story at all. If you are already involved in this comic, then you have the picture of the person in your mind already and it’s barely noticeable but it stops the story from flowing as smoothly as it would. Overall this book was very interesting and almost keeps you guessing through out of what’s going to happen. I found it quite a new experience because I normally don’t read this genre but the heart of the book was beautiful.