Lost at sea:Derelict

Initially you'd not think this a genre comic but as a overwhelming sense of loneliness spreads out across  the ocean it becomes apparent that Derelict is a barnacled sea-sprayed attempt at a post-apocalyptic world. It also becomes apparent that humanity is not alone in this new decrepit seascape. There are others that are alien in visage and behaviour. The strip takes enough time to show the main character's standard solitude before injecting some unwanted chaos into her routines.

  We've been here before in Western culture but not very often. Waterworld was deemed a spectacular failure for some reason but at least it attempted something new underneath its high concept high dollar Hollywood bloat. Earthsea perhaps is the most apt response to a watery expanse that rewards nomadic piracy.

I really appreciate the use of silence here in the first forty odd pages as it sets the tone of this work. It's a brave creator that's willing to let the tone of desolation do the job but I find it sets in place the strangeness of this world.

Things pick up a bit after that but that initial pacing puts that narrative into perspective. After that it becomes a pretty dense text with alternate viewpoints of this intermingling of human and otherness. It's the old question about how humans will interact with a sentient other.With these interactions the characters still feel like ciphers, no real flaws but no particular need to follow their adventures as they as yet appear to be disconnected.

If the linework for individual characters can be a bit smudgy at times then the backgrounds are a solid good admixture of shades and tones from the get-go. It approaches an almost liquid viscousness at times. At the moment it doesn't look like a spectacularly stand-out strip but more like a solid attempt to tell a long-format story. I don't fully mesh with the main characters as yet but the background of a failed world provided is an interesting counterpoint to the standard nuclear bomb shelter scenario that typically gets played out.