Tura and Eva #2
Posted: Wednesday, December 20, 2006
By: Steve Saville
Creator(s): Jim Sumii
Publishers: Fecus Publishing (Self Published)
From: USA
Price: $2.50(US)
The cover of this comic proclaims that this is the second spectacular adventure of Eva and Tura, two female characters who look a little like they have escaped from the pages of an Archie comic [this is not in itself a bad thing after all Archie comics are damn fine]. Now ‘spectacular’ is a pretty big word to throw around. There is no doubt that this is the second adventure I am not quite so sure that it is spectacular though.
There are two parallel narratives running through this particular edition. On the one hand Eva is battling through a post apocalyptic, urban environment as she fights her way towards the evil, all consuming, giant squid creature that seem to be the cause of all the destruction that she is surrounded by. Meanwhile her good friend Tura is going through an equally dangerous journey towards the centre of her own psyche. One is an internal journey the other external, quite a nice balance then and well linked in so far as they both seem to being drawn towards the squid creature.
Of the two journeys I prefer that of Eva’s. This is partly because Sumii draws a mean computer enhanced, urban background and partly because that on her way she has to do battle with some very well drawn zombie, monkey men creatures. There is some pretty effective hacking and blasting as Eva and her two allies overcome these drooling foes.
Tura's internal sub conscious journey on the other hand is plagued by the accompaniment of Pokemon style creatures of her mind. These tend to be an annoying visual feature particularly Mr Broccoli who features on the front page. It is nice to see the Yellow Submarine make an appearance though.
The use of a parallel narrative structure is a good idea but a little disjointed at times and this can be distracting.
The layout of the pages works well and is cleverly planned. The generally large frames allow Sumii to indulge in his ability to provide us with detailed and impressive backgrounds.
This is a nice looking comic with a very modern feel to it. It does have a slight identity problem though in that it looks very ‘cutesy’ and appears on first impressions to be aimed at a pre teen audience but this is contradicted by the storyline and dialogue that is clearly aimed at a post pubescent audience.
Overall then Eva and Tura proved to be an entertaining if not memorable read. Sumii promises us further instalments as our two heroines sale away into the setting sun, I only hope that the zombie monkey men follow them as they still remain the single most impressive feature of this particular edition.
In a Word: Dislocating.
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