1949

Detective Sebastina Blank is one of the most brilliant homicide detectives around, having caught multiple killers over the years.  However, she’s currently facing her most challenging case as she tracks down the murderer known only as the Gray Water Killer.  Things are so bad that the FBI has even sent in an agent to help with her investigation, but Detective Blank is also dealing with another, more surreal issue.  You see, every time she goes to sleep she dreams that she’s 200 years in the future where  a version of her has been cloned in order to live out her previous life in a way that defies the expectations of the past.  Except that this time the future may have more of an impact on her past than she could’ve imagined.

“1949” was originally serialized in Dustin Weaver’s sci-fi comics anthology “Paklis” and it looks every bit as good as you’d expect based on his previous work in “Avengers,” “Uncanny X-Men,” and “S.H.I.E.LD.”  His eye for composition and detail impresses whether the story is being told in black and white or full color.  You get intricate linework that comes together to give the police investigation in the past a claustrophobic urgency, while the future scenes have an expansiveness and detail to them that’s easy to admire.

As for the writing, well, it’s not quite as good but it’s not terrible either.  The problem is that the story doesn’t have enough space to properly explain the relationship between the past and future sequences.  While I wasn’t lost, I still felt confused as to what was going on from time to time and the final reveal of the killer lacks the impact it should’ve had as a result.  That leaves “1949” feeling like a lead-in to a more in-depth exploration of this world that Weaver has created, one that I wouldn’t mind re-visiting if only to take in more of the creator’s great art.