Who’s ready for some time-travel shenanigans?
Ei8ht* follows a time-traveller who lands in a wasteland outside of time. His mission is to kill a man known only as The Spear in order to save his wife. The only catch is that in his temporal voyage, he has lost his memory. It’s a bit like Memento meets Looper, which, yes, does sound like a confusing narrative.
Good news, though: with Rafael Albuquerque being behind story (with Mike Johnson scripting dialogue) and art, Eight manages to clearly communicate when scenes take place through use of color. The past, present, future, and Meld** each receives its own coded color wash—you only have to look to the sky to know when you are. It takes an issue or so to get the code down—once you meet the supporting characters, that helps too.
Mechanics aside, Eight looks and feels like a pulp sci-fi adventure—image if Flash Gordon were a time-traveller with memory issues. It’s a fun, satisfying story that comes to a fairly clean conclusion(and while this is Volume One, there’s no word on more, so that’s a good thing).
This was a fun read, and a pretty quick one despite its formal complexities. I wound up copying down the book’s color key to reference as I went, and that helped keep things straight as I started. If pulpy time-travel sounds like it’d be your bag, check Eight out. If you’re someone who tends to be critical of time-travel stories, well, this IS one, so don’t grab it and let me hear your start picking apart the made up time-travel rules.
* I’m typing it as Eight from here on out. Just pretend the g is an 8.
** The land between time.
Collected in
- Ei8ht, Vol. 1: Outcast (#1-5)
Credits
Writers: Rafael Albuquerque, Mike Johnson | Artist: Rafael Albuquerque | Letterer: Nate Piekos of Blambot