I first saw this comic book on Kickstarter, and it looked like an interesting concept.
The Heroes of Echo Company are a group of elite Space Marines who have taken on the personas of Earth’s greatest heroes and legends…The young Marines of Echo Company, Sinbad, Robin Hood, Lancelot, Hua Mulan, Samson, Wild Bill and Musahi, under the command of Erik Wright, code name Ulysses, will have to prove what a real hero is when they are faced with the horrors of war.“
The story is set in the year 2145 and the Marines of Echo Company portray themselves as heroes of the past. Just try to imagine the movie Aliens, but with Ripley surrounded by The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It certainly was an original concept, and I just had to check it out after seeing some of the striking character pin-ups posted to the kickstarter. You can see them at the bottom of this post.
The art by Joseph Henson worked really well with the story and the pace of the book was great. Perhaps I should not be so impressed by ‘panel pages’, but by about page 13 I had that moment where I realized just how well the story was being told, both visually and narratively.
The coloring and ‘texture(?)’ to the finished work gives the world of Echo Company that ‘lived in’ look, a bit like the world of TV’s Battlestar Galactica reboot, or the film Outland. And like those examples, the inhabitants of Echo Company come across the same way…they too are far from perfect, not just ‘bad-ass’ heroes, and their flaws give them a bit of depth and vulnerability. They drink, they gamble, maybe cheat a little…you’ll love ’em.
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One day while browsing on eBay, you can imagine my surprise when I recognized a name on some art for sale; that name was Gary Shipman. He had several mixed media illustrations for sale, all made with an interesting style to them. Something he called ‘Outsider Art’.