Elephantmen #7
February 2007
Publisher: Image Comics
Writers: Richard Starkings & Joe Kelly
Artists: Moritat & Chris Bachalo
Colorist: Aron Lusen
Cover Inks: Tim Townsend
Letters: Richard Starkings

39 pages

Rating: 3 out of 5

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Premise: Hip Flask – an anthropomorphic hippo – tries to get a runaway girl to go home. He tells her a little parable to help her see the correct path.

Synopsis:

Hip has just figured out part of the secret of the idol that’s been appearing in the last few issues. A runaway girl shows up and wants Hip to take her to the hospital to see Ebony Hide (an anthropomorphic elephant). She refuses to call her mom, so Hip tells her a story about a pirate – Captain Stoneheart – who breaks the heart of a fairy and brings pain to himself and others as a result. After the story, the girl is much more willing to go home.

There’s a brief epilogue to set up future conflict, but it’s not a big deal in the course of this story.

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Review:

I’ve been into the Elephantmen since I picked up Hip Flask: Mystery City about a year ago. The combination of Starkings’s stories and Ladronn’s (and Moritat’s) art results in a package that’s just too difficult to resist.

The continuing single-issue series has traditionally been in the two-story format with multiple artists. The books traditionally read as done-in-one even though they’re building up a larger story arc. If I’m remembering correctly, this is the first issue that has been made up of one complete story (although it’s done as a story-within-a-story format, so you’re still almost getting two stories).

This is a good issue. “Captain Stoneheart and the Truth Fairy” is a very imaginative tale that is well-told with a mingling of narrative and dialogue. Bachalo’s pencils are incredibly detailed and a pleasure to delve into.

But.

The pencilwork is almost completely obscured by Lusen’s colors. I appreciate his use of rich, vivid colors, but the whole palette on this issue is so dark that it renders the images nearly indecipherable. I don’t know if the printing ended up being darker than was expected, or if this is just how it was done. Bachalo’s work is so fine and detailed that it’s a shame it has to be read under an intense-but-diffuse light (because the gloss of the pages tends to create glare in any light bright enough to read this under) in order to make any sense of them.

That made the issue difficult enough to read for me to knock it from a 5 to a 3. Too bad.