Great Pacific #8 Review

By Zac Boone on Wednesday, July 10th, 2013

>>>SPOILER WARNING!<<<

While the last issue got off to an less than refreshing start, it ended on a cliffhanger that was immensely intriguing, despite the fact that we could reasonably assume things would turn out okay. In Great Pacific #8, Chas faces new problems and new questions. But are the enemies new, or old? Here’s the description from Image:

“NATION BUILDING” Part Two

Who shot Chas Worthington? It’s not like he hasn’t pissed off his share of people who’d want him dead. But while outside powers threaten to hijack control of his fledgling trash nation, forces within the plastic province of New Texas conspire to tear it apart.

For much of the writing on Great Pacific, Joe Harris gives the characters an air of inscrutability. The dialogue is often cryptic, with characters avoiding stating their thoughts outright; there’s a disconnect between words and deeds, to the point that I sometimes have difficulty following along. It occasionally achieves Grant Morrison levels of impenetrability, but without the meta-fictional commentary to make it feel worthwhile.

That said, Harris makes a few adjustments here that vastly improve the book. The most notable is a prologue of sorts, that initially seems only tangentially related to the story, but becomes increasingly relevant by the end. More importantly, its unknowable quality goes a long way toward justifying the same in the main plot, while simultaneously underlining the theme of something lurking beneath the surface, both literally and figuratively.

The other adjustment is a solidification or, at least, a ramping up of the book’s conspiratorial feel. There are wheels within wheels, and we see the actions of characters besides Chas (I know we’ve seen that before, but here it just feels more. Better. More better.)

Martín Morazzo‘s art is crucial in contributing the atmosphere to the previously mentioned prologue. He also continues to expand the versatility of the horizontal rectangle as a panel shape. His faces here are strange, the features oddly placed on the heads.