Review: ‘Gargoyles’ #9 Begins The Court Hearing Of Goliath

Writer Greg Weisman creates a realistic feeling court hearing. However, Weisman does so at the cost of continuing most of the ongoing subplots. Though at least one subplot is continuing concurrently with the hearing of Goliath. Weisman also has an opening bit of dialogue hurt by the Disney logo before the titular word. This will be various levels of a jarring experience depending on the reader.

Illustrator George Kambadais does a mostly great job with consistency with the exception of the female lawyer’s face. It just seems to go off model a few times due to pose and facial expression. Kambadais also is responsible for covers G, J, and V. While the image has a fluid looking motion the design feels like Kambadais got to parts of it last minute. This is due to how covers J and V don’t really work as well due to the lack of trade dress on J and no colors on V.

Letterer Jeff Eckleberry does a good job with bolding the text for emphasis. Eckleberry also does a great job at placement and fitting the text in a way that goes well with the visual pacing.

Cover artist David Nakayama is responsible for covers A, H, O, and P. While the image Nakayma creates for these covers ties in to the story it is arguably not that appealing of an image.

Artist Lucio Parrillo does an amazing job with the proportions for the image on covers B, L, and U. Parrillo’s work is debatably of lesser quality on cover U due to the lack of color, but it still is high quality.

Variant covers C, M, and W are by artist Lesley “Leirix” Li. While Li does a near impeccable job with the line work and effects the lack of color on W shows the flaws in the image.

Artist Jae Lee and colorist June Chung provide the visuals for covers D and N. Jae Lee also provides the line art for cover T. The art for D and N has certain details that are more noticeable cause of Chung’s choice of colors. In particular Elisa Maza’s legs are easier to differentiate for Goliath frame thanks to the coloring. Yet, the line art version that is cover T allows for more study of the art.

Covers E, K, and S are by art team Tony Fleecs and Trish Forstner. All of these covers feature the unnecessary use of a slight dutch angle. Although this does not actually hurt the visual it will possibly hurt some of the sales since it may put off some buyers. Yet, the visual is still a nice one. One of its pluses is the sense of depth that spacing out the various elements creates.

Artist Miriana Puglia is responsible for covers F and I. The lack of trade dress on cover I seems to create an in-process aesthetic to this particular piece of action figure art. Though which of the two covers is superior is up for debate. As for the design itself it is pretty standard as far as this type of design goes. Yet, the sense of depth and the visual effect of a lens flare on the packaging makes it high quality. Finally the differing golds help create outstanding depictions of the gargoyle Coldfire.

The final variant covers are Q, R, and X by artist Ken Haeser. While Haeser creates an overall okay image the texture creates problems, such as Goliath’s arm looking metallic.

Packager/editor Nate Cosby does a mostly good job helping put this issue together. However, Cosby fails when it comes to noticing that cover T has the wrong creative credits in the cover gallery.

Gargoyles #9 is out now from Dynamite Entertainment.