REVIEW: Centralia 1-3

Description: A sci-fi murder mystery combining the best elements of Dune, Casablanca and Star Wars!

Creative Team :
Jay Taylor – Story/Art
Mike Frangione – Writer

I love Dune, Casablanca, and Star Wars so this series already piqued my interest right from the description. You have some distant world scavenging, you have action, you have drama, and space adventures all rolled into one series. It was an interesting story, and I was fortunate to be able to read the whole thing. 

STORY

.75-stars

The story does start off a bit slow for the first few pages, but then it picks up. It sets up early on the tension between several of the characters is known, which does make you wonder what happened that they are so bitter towards each other. You may feel slightly lost on who is who in issue 1, but issue 2 does help to bridge the gap so keep going with the story. Issue 3 is where the story really does shine as it is the final issue.  

ART

.50-stars

As a B&W comic the artwork was not bad overall, but it did hinder the overall potential. Issue 1 had some moments where a few characters, namely you will come to learn later as Barom and Ablende did resemble each other in some panels. This could have been an opportunity to add different features or even a small color pop. Issue 2 was much more polished as the characters, clothing, and overall design were really improved upon. This level of detail continued and even improved going into issue 3. I believe with some refinement of the art in issue one and a few pages in issue 3, this comic could really stand out. 

DIALOGUE 

.50-stars

The dialogue was very clear across the series and was fun to see the interactions with the characters. Over time you start to build the character’s voice in your head and get a sense of how they feel in their interactions.  I felt that several panels were a bit wordy in the text bubble and could have been broken down. There was also a moment in issue 1 where internal monologue could have been better utilized as a text bubble since the character was alone in several initial pages.  The use of different font styles for certain characters was an interesting touch. 

MECHANICS

.75-Stars

The story had a good flow to it from panel to panel, but there were some pages that I believe the number of panels could have been reduced and spread out. I did feel that there was so much content missing from the story that could be better told if it was a longer series. 

EDITING: 

1-star

I found the series to be free of major errors and you can tell the creators took the time to address any issues with each comic. 

Overall Centralia was a great read. Towards the end, I did find myself hoping for another issue because there is so much potential there. The writers did a great job keeping that door open to add more to the series if they ever wanted to revisit it. 

Buy it: https://www.onthesquarecomicsandstudio.com/on-the-square-original-comics