Far Down Below #1: The Hollow Earth

Welcome to The Hollow Earth. It’s 1865, and Dr. Atkins and his two fellow expedition members have drilled their way down to a subterranean world–one that Atkins may have been wrong to assume was free of dangers. Far Down Below #1 then cuts to the relative present of 1983. Brian and Jeff are locked in mortal combat with dominos and Star Wars action figures. That is until Jeff finds out that Brian’s family owns a haunted house and the two bike out into the rain to check it out.

Far Down Below #1’s opening pages read like a classic science fiction adventure story–something written before science knew very much about the Earth, and made when color film was barely out of its infancy. Fans of this sort of material will be moved to nostalgia or, if younger, a bit of a smile.

The tone shift that occurs after this is massive, almost whiplash inducing. What the one has to do with the other is unclear at first, at least to less attentive readers. Whether or not Condon will make clue-dropping a key part of his storytelling in this series is unclear. But picking up on hints and clues before they are spelled out can be a thrill.

Condon and Schall’s depiction of Brian and Jeff in Far Down Below #1 is charming in its own right. The two have created an elaborate line of dominoes running around their various and recognizable Star Wars toys, the goal of which is to have the final domino knock over the Han Solo and Princess Leia action figures. Later, one of the boys shows off that he found the name of the father of the girl he wants to ask out in the phone book and he’s going to call to talk to her. Like the opening pages, the sequence Condon has written will incite a sense of nostalgia in readers of a certain age while eliciting a chuckle of two from younger readers.

Schall’s art overall is detailed or minimalist depending on what’s being depicted. Characters’ emoting comes almost entirely from eye and mouth variations (the latter of which is often exaggerated). The lack of more detailed lines that might, for instance, delineate cheekbones, enhance expressions on foreheads, or indicate age gives every character an overall energetic feel. Whether it’s the characters arriving in The Hollow Earth in Far Down Below #1’s opening pages, Brian and Jeff playing with their dominoes, or Brian’s mom frantically making dinner, every one of them has a frenetic, jump-off-the-page quality. It adds considerable urgency to Condon’s story.

Settings, backgrounds, and objects, on the other hand, receive considerable detail. The kitchen Mrs. Atkins is frantically toiling in is well appointed. More than just an environment of cupboards, drawers, appliances, and minor surface design, Schall captures the frantic nature of Mrs. Atkins’ dinner preparation. Spices sit in uneven rows, halfway organized dishes fill the sink, red splotches from the boiled over dinner dot the stovetop, and a bottle of salad dressing lays on its side. Simultaneously, a blender with a neatly bundled cord sits in the corner, obviously unused for this meal and suggesting that the kitchen is not always in the condition depicted here. Like the domino track depicted a few pages earlier, Schall has created a lived-in space.

A shift in color accompanies the shift in tone that separates past and present in Far Down Below #1. It is almost as stark as well. The opening pages set in The Hollow Earth are colored in lighter shades of brown. The only exception to this brown color scheme are the characters’ lanterns which glow a bright yellow that then fades into a hint of brown surrounding them, almost suggesting a dusty haze. This isn’t a surprising choice given the setting. Nor is it surprising when the issue brightens as soon as it jumps to the present, the entirety of which takes place above ground and during the day. This abrupt change makes it easy to miss the immediate visual hints connecting the past and the present.

Sound effects are the order of the day in Far Down Below #1. From the first page to the last, there is no shortage, and Kempf makes a meal of them. They range in size from small accompanying details to panel filling exclamations. Kempf gives every kind of sound effect its own style, but no matter how ostentatious they become in any given panel, he always ties them visually into Schall’s art and color choices. Even when the sound effects command a panel, they are of a piece with everything else in the panel.