Ellium: Rise of the
Fallen
Story:
Matt Krizan
Art:
Jason Moser
Music:
Scott
Vladimire Licina
90-minute
DVD from Asylum Ink
Ellium: Rise of the
Fallen is the new DVD from Jason
Moser and the guys at Asylum Ink. It continues his epic
comic and graphic novel
series about a pair of secret, competing quasi-governmental
conspiracies called
the Ellium and the Plato
Continuum. The
Ellium-verse is a dark and often mystical
place where things aren’t always what they seem, and where
you’re always at war
with your enemies, and you’re usually at odds with your
friends, too.
Though
I’m not necessarily an expert on all
things Ellium, I can tell you without hesitation that this new volume
of the
saga is easily my favorite so far.
It
tells its story in four fairly short, loosely related chapters (Diamond Mine, Blood
Red Snow, Little
Deaths, and Swordplay),
each of
which is more than capable of standing all on its own.
And it’s a good thing, too, since even Ellium
enthusiasts might have become confused by now between the various
publication-methods this project has seen.
But honestly, you can’t knock it.
Ellium is about as good as it gets for the small press,
and the fact
that Jason and company have gone to the trouble of releasing this new
piece via
DVD is just one more reason why, for all its fits and starts, Ellium is
still
right on the cutting edge of the indie comics movement.
Two things made
this project work for me: the art and the
music. Yes, Ellium
is a sequential art project,
and as such it’s a fundamentally visual piece, but the music
is absolutely
critical to the mood and the flavor of the story these guys are telling. The music is literally
perfect. Haunting
but not overbearing, it sucks you in
and helps control the tempo of your reading even as it sets the mood. Plus, since you are
reading, you’re
working. You’re
helping to tell yourself
the story. That’s
better than TV—at
least for me—because it forces me to feel for the characters
in a way that I
rarely do with television or movies.
It
brings me in. And
that makes the very
occasional sound effects that much more shocking.
You aren’t expecting them.
They hit you hard and go through you more
powerfully than onomatopoeia on the page ever does.
The traditional comic experience isn’t
normally this all-encompassing, but after you see this DVD,
you’ll wish it was.
And
then too, there’s the art.
This DVD marks Jason’s return to drawing by
hand, and that shows BIG TIME. He’s
used
a mixture of pencils, inks, charcoal, water colors, and computer
animation to
create a texture and a feel that is totally unique in comics today. You won’t see
anything that even remotely
resembles this anywhere else, and that’s the point. It’s an indie
project. These guys
are pushing the boundaries in
every direction, and I for one am loving it.
I
had a great time with Ellium:
Rise of the Fallen and recommend it without reservation to
anyone who
enjoys horror/action comics and to anyone looking for a good example of
the
next big thing in comics. Not
only have
these guys done something new here, they’ve done it well. It’s a joy to
watch and a pleasure to
review. If
you’re looking for a great
new indie project to support, Ellium: Rise of the Fallen is the one,
trust
me. It’s
definitely a Comic You Should Be Reading.
