Review – Trees #7 (Image Comics)

Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Jason Howard
Release Date: 26th November 2014

This series was initially a bit of slow burner for me, and I think I may have been a little too quick to judge. After catching up on the series this past week, I still think it’s a slow burner, but there’s an odd amount of intrigue in the world that Ellis and Howard have created here.

It’s no surprise that there is a level of detail written by Ellis that has a strange charm to it, as is clearly evident during the scene between the professor and his protegé. The prof. comes across as oddly caring for someone that has so far been very cold and calculating.

When I first started reading the series, I found the amount of characters featured to be jarring and off-putting, with each character not being given the time to breathe. Now however, with sometimes each story only being given a few pages, the different arcs are ticking along at their own pace but still adding to the overall narrative. Ellis is taking time to show that the Trees are effecting everyone’s lives, whether in be small ways or greater, such as perching rockets on top of one?! This is one I wasn’t so sure of, as it’s been mentioned before that nothing seems to stick to the trees, but hey, I’m happy with the explanation given for now.

Howard’s art is well suited to the series, there’s a certain ‘unfinished’ look to it that gives the pace of the book a push forward, and his detailing during the scenes in the snow have been amazing. One problem I’ve been having with it though is that there seems to be a certain heavy-handedness to his lines that can make the page seem overly cluttered and a little too dark.

I still maintain that the series is best read in chunks as there just isn’t enough meat in then single issues, but when put together, there’s definitely a spark of a great story in there somewhere.

Rating: 3/5.

Chris_Avatar The writer of this piece was: Chris Bennett
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