Broken Frontier

Creating your own comic book isn’t as easy as it looks. Even in this day and age when a month or week doesn’t go by without a new comic book movie bouncing into theaters, you still get strange looks or remarks such as “Oh, that’s a nice hobby…” when you let slip you’re working on your own comic. People don’t see the late nights, the money spent, or feel the migraines from squinting at your computer screen for far longer than recommended by your average healthcare professional.

I have all the respect in the world then for a guy like Raphael Moran, who has obviously poured a lot of time, effort, and possibly money into his creator-owned book Dream Reavers. Published by Ape Entertainment and available this September, if pre-ordered now, Dream Reavers follows the metaphysical misadventures of a quartet of special teens, who all awake in an ephemeral realm called Astral, after falling into deep comas simultaneously.

Moran’s strength is characterization; he wastes no time developing his protagonists. Each member of the central quartet feels distinct without calculation, their histories diverse and inventive as Moran lets each one drive the plot for a spell. He capitalizes on the quiet moments, using dialogue to effectively propel his story forward rather than letting exposition bog down the reader. One of my favorite things about Moran’s writing is that he refuses to coddle the reader. He’s not going to hold your hand and walk you through his story. Rather, the audience meets his protagonists and discovers new worlds organically, through the course of conversation or by circumstance. The world of Dream Reavers is a fluid one. Letting the reader uncover its mysteries in the most natural way possible only enhances the journey.

Marc Borstel’s art has a nice, timeless feel to it that recalls classic comic book house styles of the 80s, while infusing his characters with expressiveness absent from most of that era’s mainstream comics. Aided and abetted by Atul Bakshi and David Hedmark, who employ markedly different styles to breathe life and variety into the dream realm of Astral, Borstel’s storytelling anchors Dream Reavers in the here-and-now, in the concrete and mortar of reality. The juxtaposition between the differing styles services Moran’s story remarkably well, revealing as much about the characters and their motivations as the dialogue and action.

A pleasant, well-crafted surprise that works on a number of technical levels, Dream Reavers is yet another reason to cast your line a little farther out than Marvel and DC’s waters this summer.