Carbon Grey vol. 1: Sisters at War

Do I feel inclined to contribute to the Kickstarter campaign to fund the second volume now?  Sadly, not really.  This first volume of “Carbon Grey” positions itself as an epic story involving prophecy, war, betrayal, and the fate of an empire.  All of these are centered around the four Sisters Grey, and one in particular, Giselle, who may be the daughter prophesied to bring about revolution in the world.  It’s all very ambitious, but the creators are not quite up to the task of giving this story the execution it deserves.  Though they clearly have a story to tell, it comes off as more focused on widescreen action than coherence or worldbuilding.  A bigger problem is that there’s barely any character development at all.  None of the events here have any resonance because it’s hard to care about a group of one-dimensional ciphers.  No editor is listed in the credits for this book, but this is a story that desperately needed one in order to bring out its full potential.

However, “Carbon Grey” does have one major point in its favor:  the art.  Three people, Khari Evans, Kinsun Loh, and Hoang Nguyen are listed as providing the (mostly) stunning look of this series that is sure to catch anyone’s eye.  Almost every panel boasts a level of detail that’s usually only reserved for covers, but it avoids the posed awkardness that comes from artists like Greg Land who clearly swipe their characters from other sources.  There’s a vitality to the art here that manifests itself in the incredible action sequences such as Giselle’s airship escape in the book’s opening, and her mid-air assault on pursuing aircraft later on.  It’s not all perfect, though, as there are also more than a few sequences where it looks like the artist came down with a case of this-needs-to-get-to-the-printers-NOW as they look embarrassingly unfinished compared to the rest of the book.  Overall, this wasn’t really a bad book, but it’s clearly a case of the creators’ reach exceeding their grasp.  Recommended mainly for fans of great art, who may also be interested in picking up the recently published artbook as well.