PUBLISHER: CARD SHARK COMICS / FORMAT: SINGLE ISSUE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
In the fantasy realm of Cairnthala, amnesiac warrior Wake battled a malevolent force, the aftermath of which caused strange objects fall from the sky, everyday items in our world but bizarre and unfathomable artefacts to the denizens of this one. After embarking upon a quest to discover the source of the disturbance, she soon learns that there is a lot more going on than she first thought.
The middle section of any story has the unenviable task of continuing it in a way as compelling as what first hooked the reader, but also not so spectacular that it ends up overshadowing the finale. The third issue of Vessels achieves this by saving until the issue’s climax the first of the promised fights against the titular band of hunters pursuing Wake, whereupon the story’s RPG video game influences become apparent.
The confrontation with Smell, a sinister alchemist garbed like a plague doctor, plays out exactly like a boss fight, facing off with a powerful creature who it’s not possible to battle by rushing them and hoping for the best, but must be studied and observed so their movement and attacks can be understood and predicted, and only then is it possible to figure out how to properly defeat them.
Prior to this, we see a little more of the world outwith Wake’s perspective, and how the cataclysm is affecting everyday life for people involved both directly and tangentially, reminding us that this is not just a standard hero’s journey, but one whose events have ongoing repercussions for everyone, even if their individual plights remain unseen.
Doing justice to this series’ art continues to strain a thesaurus’ entry for ‘vibrant’, and its vivid mix of brightly lit colours rich in saturation and heavy in contrast demand each panel be scoured for detail. Additional touches like scarlet panel borders hiding an unseen act of violence or jagged tree branches weaving into image transitions highlight just how thought out each stroke of digital ink truly is.
The story is still light on explanations, although to be fair has already provided you with enough detail to suss out much of the underlying mystery, less ‘show don’t tell’ and more ‘imply rather than clarify’, crediting the reader with enough intelligence to not require everything spelled out for them.
Overall, Vessels #3 poses more questions than its answers, but in doing so it deepens the central concept while also establishing links between the occasionally disparate aspects of the setting, promising greater drama and action to come.
