Comics Bulletin logo
Search
  • Columns
    Random
    • All The Rage: Down And Dirty

      Chase Magnett
      August 23, 2000
      All the Rage
    Recent
    • The Full Run: Usagi Yojimbo – The Wanderer’s Road Part 2

      Daniel Gehen
      December 4, 2020
    • The Full Run: Usagi Yojimbo – The Wanderer’s Road Part 1

      Daniel Gehen
      October 30, 2020
    • Comictober 2020: DRACULA MOTHERF**KER

      Daniel Gehen
      October 27, 2020
    • What Looks Good
    • Comics Bulletin Soapbox
    • The Full Run
    • Leading Question
    • Top 10
    • The Long-Form
    • Jumping On
    • Comics in Color
    • Slouches Towards Comics
  • Big Two
    Random
    • 4.5

      Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller, v1-3

      Chase Magnett
      August 4, 2004
      Big Two Reviews, Marvel Comics, Reviews
    Recent
    • 4.5

      DCeased: Dead Planet #7 Presents a Hopeful Future (Review)

      Daniel Gehen
      January 22, 2021
    • Retro Review: Detective Comics #826 Remains a Holiday Classic

      Daniel Gehen
      December 3, 2020
    • Stan Lee

      nguyen ly
      November 7, 2020
    • DC Comics
    • Big Two Reviews
    • Marvel Comics
  • Indie
    Random
    • Interview: Irene Koh Subverts Typical Princess Tropes in 'Afrina and the Glass Coffin'

      Chase Magnett
      May 5, 2016
      Indie, Interviews
    Recent
    • Review: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist

      Daniel Gehen
      December 14, 2020
    • The Full Run: Usagi Yojimbo – The Wanderer’s Road Part 2

      Daniel Gehen
      December 4, 2020
    • 4.5

      TMNT: The Last Ronin #1 Lives Up to the Hype (Review)

      Daniel Gehen
      October 29, 2020
    • Reviews
    • Archie Comics
    • Boom! Studios
    • Dark Horse
    • IDW
    • Image
    • Oni Press
    • Valiant
  • Reviews
    Random
    • 3.0

      Turning Tiger

      Chase Magnett
      December 16, 2011
      Reviews
    Recent
    • 4.5

      DCeased: Dead Planet #7 Presents a Hopeful Future (Review)

      Daniel Gehen
      January 22, 2021
    • Review: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist

      Daniel Gehen
      December 14, 2020
    • Retro Review: Detective Comics #826 Remains a Holiday Classic

      Daniel Gehen
      December 3, 2020
    • Singles Going Steady
    • Slugfest
    • Manga
      • Reviews
    • Small Press
      • Reviews
      • ICYMI
      • Tiny Pages Made of Ashes
  • Interviews
    Random
    • Jamie S Rich Gives it All to Comics

      Chase Magnett
      December 10, 2012
      Interviews
    Recent
    • Interview: Jon Davis-Hunt Talks SHADOWMAN

      Daniel Gehen
      June 8, 2020
    • Interview: Becky Cloonan talks DARK AGNES and Her Personal Influences

      Mike Nickells
      March 4, 2020
    • Simon Roy

      Interview: Simon Roy on His Inspirations and Collaborations on PROTECTOR

      Mike Nickells
      January 29, 2020
    • Audio Interview
    • Video Interview
  • Classic Comics
    Random
    • 5.0

      Classic Comics Cavalcade: R. Crumb: Conversations

      Chase Magnett
      January 23, 2014
      Classic Comics Cavalcade, Columns
    Recent
    • Countdown to the King: Marvel’s Godzilla

      Daniel Gehen
      May 29, 2019
    • Honoring A Legend: Fantagraphics To Resurrect Tomi Ungerer Classics

      Daniel Gehen
      February 15, 2019
    • Reliving the Craziest Decade in Comics History: An interview with Jason Sacks

      Mark Stack
      January 2, 2019
    • Classic Comics Cavalcade
    • Classic Interviews
  • News
    Random
    • Exclusive IDW Preview: "Insufferable" #4

      Chase Magnett
      August 3, 2015
      IDW, Previews
    Recent
    • 2020 Ringo Awards Winners Announced

      Daniel Gehen
      October 26, 2020
    • BAD IDEA Announces 2021 Publishing Slate

      Daniel Gehen
      September 29, 2020
    • A Full Replay of NCSFest 2020 is now Available

      Daniel Gehen
      September 15, 2020
    • Press Release
    • Kickstarter Spotlight
  • Books
    Random
    • Pénélope Bagieu is California Dreamin'

      Chase Magnett
      July 18, 2017
      Books
    Recent
    • Collecting Profile: Disney Frozen

      CB Staff
      November 22, 2019
    • Collecting Profile: NFL Superpro

      CB Staff
      August 31, 2019
    • “THE BEST OF WITZEND” is a Wonderful Celebration of Artistic Freedom

      Daniel Gehen
      September 15, 2018
    • Review: ‘Machete Squad’ is a Disappointing Afghan Memoir

      Jason Sacks
      July 31, 2018
    • Review: ‘Out of Nothing’ is the Antidote to Our Sick Times

      Jason Sacks
      July 23, 2018
    • Review: ‘Bizarre Romance’ Shows Rough Edges in the Early Days of a New Marriage

      Jason Sacks
      July 10, 2018
What's New
  • Collecting Profile: If I win Powerball, I will buy Amazing Fantasy 15
  • DCeased: Dead Planet #7 Presents a Hopeful Future (Review)
  • Collecting Profile: Batwoman
  • Collecting Profile: Daredevil
  • Collecting Profile: Floronic Man
  • Review of Cheetah in Wonder Woman 1984
  • RSS Feed
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Contact Us
  • Write for us!
  • Visit Video Game Break!
Home
Reviews

Advance Review: “Low” is a Comic with High Expectations

Chase Magnett
July 30, 2014
Reviews
Advance Review: "Low" is a Comic with High Expectations
4.5Overall Score
Reader Rating: (0 Votes)

Low is a comic filled with ambition. Its art, scope, and prose all cry out that it is something unique in today’s comics scene and worthy of attention.

The first thing that will stand out to readers is Greg Tocchini’s art. The cover first released at an Image Expo stokes a sense of awe. The peculiar machine holding hands with a little girl in a room filled with water does not seek to provide any answers. It blends horror and wonder into an engaging mood. The rising tide and blood reds capture a sense of foreboding, yet the machine’s heart-like chest and the rising stairs help to alleviate that sense and provide some optimism to the piece.

It is this cover that first compelled me to try Low and it acts as an excellent representation of the pages behind it. Tocchini’s art maintains a warped style, allowing proportions to grow or shrink in any panel. It is not so twisted that it becomes inaccessible though. Instead, it creates a dreamlike state, providing a heat shimmer or the blur of water between the reader and the story. Although the story is happening, it is happening in an alien setting far beyond our conception of reality and Tocchini’s art along with Sebastian Girner’s colors capture this perfectly.

This blurring of reality also allows Low to present its characters in an interesting way. The story opens on a bedroom scene with two naked adults. Tocchini’s linework does not emphasize their nudity, but rather their forms. They are presented as attractive, fit adults, but are not objectified by their depictions. Other characters are made to appear skeletal or half-dead, intimating something much more sinister in their personas. Similar effects are created with landscapes and machines where the feel of something is emphasized over its details. The end result is unlike almost anything in comics now.

Tocchini’s collaboration with Rick Remender represents another win in a quickly growing string of successes for the writer. Low is the third creator-owned comic he has released in the last year and each one has presented an artist with a unique voice worth watching. Remender’s story telling skills are on full display in these titles as well and Low is no exception. The world building and characterization packed into thirty pages is nothing short of astonishing.

Rather than view the debut issue as the first installment of something intended to be reformatted as a collected volume, Remender approaches it like a pilot episode of television. The premise, characters, and world are all on full display, and a dramatic change in the status quo provides plenty of momentum. Like the best pilots, it provides a complete story with an irresistible hook at the end.

Remender also does an excellent job in quickly characterizing a large number of characters in a short amount of space. All five members of the Caine family are distinctive and I could recall each of their names after a single reading. Beyond that, the major groups, locales, and villain of the story thus far were all distinctive and memorable. Remender is surgical in his use of sequences, ensuring that each will serve multiple purposes providing elements of history, relationships, and personalities in every one. It is compression done well, telling a story quickly while ensuring readers can understand what is occurring.

That is not to say Low is a flawless comic, but its ambition in building an expansive story with unique art and ideas in only thirty pages makes those flaws much more forgivable. I previously wrote about the debut of Remender and Mateo Scalera’s Black Science and noted that the issue’s greatest problem was the enormous amount of exposition. That is present in Low as well. There’s a lot to explain about this world. Some of it is nicely fit into the speech of a man who likes to discuss history. Other bits are shoehorned into dialogue that clearly exists only to explain what is happening, specifically some lines in the final sequence. It may be a necessary evil of building such a large world so quicly, but that doesn’t make the offending lines of dialogue read any better.

Although each sequence does convey key information, some feel too perfect in tone. The post-coital sequence feels perfect in a way that life rarely does. The banter, appearance, and even colors all scream about how wonderful the relationship between the couple is, so that it is impossible to believe they have ever fought in a non-playful manner. The perfection of this moment and some others tug at the believability of the relationships. Even the largest points of conflict in the Caine family are portrayed as light hearted and easily resolvable.

Low is a truly enthralling comic though. It captures its tone perfectly, juxtaposing light and darkness against one another in a surreal future. It is as much about the battling ideas of its characters as it is about surviving an inevitable apocalyptic scenario. Remender’s world building and Tocchino’s vision combine to deliver those ideas and the story in which they exist in a truly entertaining fashion.

Low #1 is a beautiful, ambitious debut that sets high expectations for future installments.

Chase MagnettGreg TocchiniImage ComicsLowRick Remender

Share On:
Tweet
Derek McCulloch and Anthony Peruzzo on ‘Displaced Persons’
Canon Fodder

About The Author

<a href="http://comicsbulletin.com/byline/chase-magnett/" rel="tag">Chase Magnett</a>
Chase Magnett

Chase is a mild-mannered finance guy by day and a raving comics fan by night. He has been reading comics for more than half of his life (all 23 years of it). After graduating from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with degrees in Economics and English, he has continued to research comics while writing articles and reviews online. His favorite superhero is Superman and he'll accept no other answers. Don't ask about his favorite comic unless you're ready to spend a day discussing dozens of different titles.

Related Posts

  • The Walking Dead Deluxe Gets 6 Connecting Covers From Charlie Adlard

    Ashley Hurst
    September 9, 2020
  • Image Comics Debuts COMMANDERS IN CRISIS This October

    Ashley Hurst
    July 4, 2020

Latest Reviews

  • 4.5

    DCeased: Dead Planet #7 Presents a Hopeful Future (Review)

    Daniel Gehen
    January 22, 2021
  • Review: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist

    Daniel Gehen
    December 14, 2020
  • Retro Review: Detective Comics #826 Remains a Holiday Classic

    Daniel Gehen
    December 3, 2020
  • 4.5

    TMNT: The Last Ronin #1 Lives Up to the Hype (Review)

    Daniel Gehen
    October 29, 2020
  • 4.5

    Micro Review: Commanders in Crisis #1

    Jason Jeffords Jr.
    October 12, 2020
  • 3.0

    Review: GHOST WRITER Fights the Spectre of Unevenness

    Daniel Gehen
    September 3, 2020
  • 3.5

    Review: Strange Skies Over East Berlin

    Yavi Mohan
    August 11, 2020
  • DRAWING BLOOD: A Hyper-Stylized, Fictional Autobiography

    Ben Bishop, Brittany Peer, David Avallone, Drawing Blood, Kevin Eastman, Tomi Varga
    August 9, 2020
  • 3.0

    Alien: The Original Script #1 – This One’s For The Fans

    Jason Jeffords Jr.
    August 7, 2020
  • Singles Going Steady: Why? Lettering!

    Daniel Gehen
    July 28, 2020
RSSTwitterFacebookgoogleplusinstagramtumblr

Comics Bulletin is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for website owners to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com, audible.com, and any other website that may be affiliated with Amazon Service LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, Comics Bulletin earns from qualifying purchases.

All content on this site (c) 2018 The Respective Copyright Holders