Filed under: Comic Reviews, Indie Comics | Tags: A Comic A Day In May, Amaru Ortiz Martinez, Colin Bell, Harry French, Leo OBrien, Lesley Atlansky, Master Tape, Salmo
Unsurprisingly enough Master Tape from Harry French is about music…..although it’s far more different than you think as we’ve got some sci-fi themes at it’s core.
Central character in this is Leo O’Brien, a music exec in a futuristic world that has no time for music. The craze for space travel has saw the decline of music in a big way and that’s left a gap in the demand for any kind of industry. The last few bands are supported by militia-like punks with an eye on anarchy and riots as much as drum solos and guitar riffs and they all have Leo in their sights. The passion of the fans overspill and the chase is on with our music exec making his way through the sewers with his intern in a desperate quest for escape.
Along the way they meet up with Salmo, an alien hiding from the camera’s and attention of the human race up top and he’s much more significant than would first appear. Almost making their escape but ultimately ending up in the belly of the beast that is the angry mob. On the brink of what looks to be execution there’s a surprising turn of events when Salmo sings……well he more than sings…..he breathes life into music itself as he sings and the euphoric response from the angry mob triggers Leo into action as he sees the potential for record deals and money in what could be the triumphant return of the music biz.
The writing is spot on and manages to somehow merge these great ideas together and that’s all paced well in this opening issue and it’ll be interesting to see if this is sustained in the remaining three issues. The art is tight from Amaru Ortiz Martinez with some impressive details in places….although the panel layout was a bit distracting on some pages there was still enough consistency to make me come back to this as much for the visuals as the writing. Brought together by some great colour work by Lesley Atlansky that brings things together to add to the strength of the story.
7/10
Keep up with Harry French over at his site
and check out this and more releases in the store
G-Man
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