Bear with me as I attempt to fill in on Supreme – Blue Rose for a month while Steve is on vacation. I won’t dare try to match his style as doing so would be as foolish as trying to capture Warren Ellis’ voice for this review… I simply can’t. Much like Steve though my knowledge and experience with Supreme is very limited. I attempted to read the last series put out by Erik Larsen which was taken from Alan Moore’s script and frankly didn’t like it. It didn’t make me go, “huh, I’d like to get to know more of this Supreme guy and his world”, quite the opposite really. Even when I heard Warren Ellis was starting up a new Supreme title I was a bit hesitant. Sure it’s Warren Ellis so I’m almost guaranteed to check it out, but that doesn’t mean I’m sure to like it.
Then I saw Tula Lotay’s artwork.
I’ve fallen in love with an artist’s style at first look before, but it’s been quite a while since I’ve fallen this hard. Lotay’s artwork has an energy to it that draws you in. Every line has a place and an intention. At times I found it so distracting (and I mean distracted in the best of ways) that I forgot to read the story, though I am equally captivated by that as well. Lotay’s coloring looks hectic at times. Like she’s gone out of the lines, but that’s what makes her style so incredible because again everything has a purpose. A large part of Lotay’s purpose is to make this book look nothing like a Supreme book and thank god for that because it’s what allows the story to be its own entity rather than living in the shadows of what came before.
We meet new characters in this book and what’s very interesting is the woman we meet that stands in front of a glass window staring in at a conversation. She doesn’t say a word, but from Lotay’s artwork you get a sense of her character. Through her body language and reaction to the conversation that’s she watching, we can understand her in a strange way… all from the artwork.
Do I know what’s happening in the story? Sure, mostly. I know enough to follow what’s happening and the rest of the mysteries I’m just trusting Ellis to work out for me. Speaking of Ellis his dialogue has been amazing of late. Each character manages to have their own unique voice and a natural, realistic sounding dialogue. In this issue we meet a writer and every bit of his story rang true, if anything it was a little rehearsed as if he had been planning on saying it for a while which gave him amazing depth. He was truly an interesting character and stole the issue with this dialogue.
I don’t know what this iteration of Supreme is going for or if it even has a clearly defined agenda. In a lot of ways it feels like Ellis just doing what he does and writing what interests him, but playing with someone else’s world to do so. I do know that it has my full and undivided attention because these issues aren't long enough to sedate my appetite.
Score: 5/5
Writer: Warren Ellis Artist: Tula Lotay Publisher: Image Comics Price: $2.99 Release Date: 8/20/14 Format: Print/Digital