Indigo Children #1 Review

 

Indigo Children #1 Review

Writers: Curt Pires & Rockwell White

Artist: Alex Diotto

Colorist: Dee Cunniffe

Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

Cover Artists: Alex Diotto; Tyler Boss; Tula Lotay; Jenny Frison

Publisher: Image

Price: $3.99

Release Date: March 29, 2023

 

In the beginning, there was darkness. Then lights appeared. The lights took form and became the glowing eyes of youths across the Egyptian desert. The youths’ feet left the ground, and they floated through the air toward the head of the ancient Sphinx. What happens next? Let’s tune into Indigo Children #1 and find out!

 

Story

Five years earlier, young Alexei boards an airplane. He glimpses a passenger’s past: the pain he suffered during the Chechen War in 1994. His mother notices his reaction and asks what he sensed. He whispers to her. She leaves to speak with a flight attendant. Suddenly a guard points his gun at the man, and the plane explodes. Boom! 

 

 

 

 

Donovan Price is tracking a story. The journalist corresponds online with his source. He travels to Russia. He meets with an aging professor who once knew Alexei. The professor piques his interest without giving him anything concrete to go on. Donovan calls in a favor. He wants to find Alexei: presumably one of the Indigo Children.

 

This double-length debut issue takes readers on a journey from Egypt to an unnamed airport and then to England before finally transporting us to Russia. Curt Pires & Rockwell White clutch the facts against their chests, making it difficult to parse what's happening. The journalist plays a videotape of young Alexei on a VCR. Yet he later claims his source sent him the video via email. The journalist uses a satnav instead of his phone. His cell phone—or his mobile phone, as he's in Europe—looks more like it belongs to the past than the present. Or is it a satellite phone? Initially, I thought the action took place in 1999. Later, I guessed the early 2000s. It wasn't until I Googled something a character mentioned that I realized that "Now," as stated in Indigo Children #1, must mean “Now.” 

 

 

 

Art

Alex Diotto’s simple, direct style gets the job done. While his characters aren't all that expressive, they're not supposed to be. The journalist asks questions. Those he asks--Russians, in this case--refuse to answer him directly. People always sweat when they're nervous. At first, I thought young Alexei was a girl. But then, I didn’t realize he was Russian.

 

Alex’s automobiles and buildings are good-to-impressive. Roads are lines with ink blotches. Bushes are inked-in forms or shapes with dots. Yet every scene provides scale. He portrays faces and bodies consistently. A laptop looks like a laptop. Old Polaroids, a well-used cup and saucer, an unlatched window that swings inward: every detail—including Russian lettering on signs and buildings--sucks us into Donovan’s journey.

 

 

 

 

Dee Cunniffe’s limited color palette enhances Diotto’s rough line art. Color combinations change with the scenes. Yet each combination fits the time, place, characters, and mood seems spot on. Light touches of shading and highlights suggest light sources. The coloring underlines the journalist’s dark journey through a land that does not know freedom.

 

Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou’s lettering conveys mood and intonation in Indigo Children #1. Sometimes symbols suggest a gasp or grunt. Dialogue balloons and attached arrows change shape. Lowered voices shift from uppercase to lowercase letters. I particularly like how he portrays psychic communication and suggests white noise pouring from a radio.  

 

 

 

 

Final Thoughts

Government conspiracies, a hint of Heinlein’s novel Stranger In A Strange Land, and an overt reference to The Truman Show make this an intriguing debut. After two readings, I don’t understand everything in Indigo Children #1, but I welcome learning more.

 

Rating 7.3/10

 

To preview interior art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch