(Originally published in Multiversity Comics’ Webcomics Weekly, October 2019)
Pages 1-5
Updates: Wednesdays
By CB Webb
Reviewed by Cathal Donovan O’Neill
“Blanco” is a gothic supernatural mystery by CB Webb. It stars Noah Velazquez, an outsider to a small town who wants to return home to the city of Blanco. His obstacles are great: for one, Blanco seems not to exits. For another, as of page 5,
“Noah Velazquez is dead.”
The first five pages of “Blanco” serve as a prologue to the first chapter, ‘Red Red Devil Behind The Gate.’ They’re light on plot but heavy on atmosphere. We open on a sharp white sky casting thick black shadows of winter trees. A crimson spatter leads our eyes down to a blood-red CRACK! A rough-hewn word balloon begins a sermon, announcing news of a tragic mortality. Blacks, whites, reds, organised religion and a gruesome murder: The first page sets the tone for all that follows.
The rest of the prologue contrasts the murder’s immediate aftermath against the later sermon. It introduces elements of mystery—the sermon says the death was a suicide as the murderer cleans his pistol. Most of all, it introduces us to Webb’s gorgeous artwork. There’s a sense of lush detail to the pencils that informs the characters: The way the murderer’s shirt hangs loose as it tucks into his trousers, down to the worn look of his fingernails.
There’s a rustic, naturalistic sense to the way the pages are constructed: the panel borders have a hand-drawn look to them, the lettering uses irregular spacing and rough balloon borders. The forest looms over the scene, with branches and blood-red shrubbery in the foreground of every panel. The closeness of the branches creates a sense of claustrophobia. Add these to the sermon and you have a tableau of small-town murder.
There’s something more to this picture, however. We see the murderer’s red hands before his face. It’d be fair to assume they’re just bloody. Instead, on the close-up, we see that they’re sprouting shoots of the red plant that lurks over the foreground. As we pan out, we see that the plant is growing up around his neck. The sprouts look like algae; an unnatural symbol of corruption, pollution choking out wildlife. It looks like some sort of infection. Although we get close-ups of every part of this man, we never get a good look at him. There is only one panel where we can see his face, and he seems to be guiltily avoiding the gaze of the camera. What’s his secret, and does it have to do with the plants?
The prologue of “Blanco” casts us into a world of snow, shadows and blood. Stark imagery belies murky question. Who was Noah Velazquez? The answers are a few clicks away. We’re left with a strong desire to find out.