Enjoy The Ride — ‘StarHenge: A Kiss For Atticus’ #2 Advance Review

StarHenge: A Kiss for Atticus #2 continues to dreamily blur the lines between reality and fiction, demanding the reader’s attention with its rich, textured art, well-thought-out layouts, and a prosaic script. Liam Sharp’s fantasy/sci-fi saga is a hugely experimental endeavour in both storytelling and art, with inspiration found in a variety of different places and art forms. And so we have a very realistic scene, clearly adapted from photo references taken from Sharp’s own collection of photos and family albums, to a more cartoon-like style — the bastard child of Bill Watterson and Bill Sienkiewicz — as well as his life as a comic book artist and painter, immersed in a lifetime of studying artists from across the ages. It all makes for a surreal, dream-like experience for both the reader and the characters of the separate storylines we are witnessing unfold, with the dark city of the first issue seeming to be one of the few fixed reference points in this swirling, changing universe, itself seemingly free of the rigours of time and space. 

This isn’t a simple read, but the dreamlike — nightmarish — quality of the first two issues is clearly one of the aims of this series. Like the characters within, suffering from half-remembered memories and menacing visions, we too are left in a state of some confusion. Like a dream you’ve just woken up from and tried to make sense of, sometimes it’s for the best to just give in to emotions conjured up by such dreams. This is, I feel, the essence of this book. Something of a trip, but without the necessary hallucinogens. Can you dig it? I certainly can. 

Sharp is undoubtedly an artist comfortable enough in his style to push the boundaries, as he has done for some time now with his use of digital art as well as traditional art styles, even including paintings from his past into the pages of this book. An art book posing as a comic with a script that purposefully confuses to create the appropriate strung-out feelings, anyone having survived certain types of summer music festival may be able to relate to. Just enjoy the ride, man, enjoy the ride. I know I did.

StarHenge: A Kiss for Atticus #2 is out on Wednesday 12th August from Image Comics.