Black Tower: The Raven Conspiracy #1: An American ESPer In London

On the face of it, it’s very easy to dismiss this latest outing from Ram V, Mike Perkins, Mike Spicer and Andworld Design as another beautifully illustrated but tropey take on an occult spy agency very much in the vein of Mignola’s B.P.R.D. or the more contemporary Shadow Service from Cavan Scott and Corin Howl. Easy, but a mistake in my opinion. While this opener plays on certain genre types it does so masterfully with expert deliberate execution from a very skilled creative team that makes issue one a strong atmospheric and compelling read from start to finish.

If you glance through this book on a surface level, it’s straight forward stuff. Young “gifted” ESPER (a term I have always loved which has roots going back all the way to a short story in 1942 but which I came upon when reading Brian Lumley’s Necroscope and Vampire World books as a teen) is sent to London to train with a secret arm of British intelligence known in certain circles as The Black Tower. A band of gifted misfits including a werewolf and a female diviner. Our central protagonist Daniel is thrown head first into this world the second he steps off the plane from America and into the pursuit of a mysterious diplomatic pouch which contains something the Black Tower wants a look at that’s the just of it. Ram V’s script sells you Daniel straight off the bat with clever pacing and jumping between the now, a memory from Daniel’s past and the run up to the sticky situation Daniel finds himself in right at the beginning of the book. There’s a great sense of mood as the book and very specifically Mike Perkin’s art transports you to orange sun dappled memories of Plainfield Pennsylvania and then to the wet streets of London as Daniel finds himself in a world of men with eyes in their palms, werewolves and Czechoslovakian doppelgangers.

Ram V splits the issue between what Daniel is up to with another investigation as we meet Alistair Romeo, senior member of the Black Tower at a murder in fire-burnt shop involving someone from his past and some missing books. Again Perkins gets to pour on the atmosphere with shadows and burnt brick and a Bobby complete in his Bobby helmet and yellow flasher and brilliant moment where a simple statement from Alistair to the Bobby is turned into a dynamic retro colored full page memory that tells you so much but leaves you with more questions at the same time. The story has a very strong espionage feel from early on peppered with supernatural moments both shown and implied. However Perkins and Spicer get to truly cut loose with a full blown werewolf moment bought to life with an incredible splash toward the end of the issue.

Coming back to that masterful execution and intentional things that Ram V puts into the story, it’s very easy to read this book on one level only and enjoy it at face value but like a very good painting – if you look at it long enough and do some digging, you realize there are layers to it. A good mystery makes you ask questions about things like why is one of the characters on the opposite side of things to The Black Tower named Munnin? Munnin seems to be a play on the name Muninn which is the name of one of one of the Norse god Odin’s Raven’s (The Raven conspiracy…. hmmm). Naming a character Alistair which in Gaelic literally means defender of man, or naming your female diviner spy character Yvette Du Maurier a seeming nod to the fictional spy Yvette who is associated with the myth of a resourceful female that discovers German intelligence operatives using a copy of English Author Daphne De Maurier’s “Rebecca” for their cypher are the sort of well researched micro details that elevate the story being told from something merely entertaining to something deeply engrossing. Throw in several mysterious characters like Alistair’s menacing driver whom I suspect is another type of super natural being to a mystery figure that just appears out of nowhere and heads out the door as a shrouded shadow in a top hat while the Daniel is having drinks after a very wild first day on the job at Black Tower HQ and what you have is very well put together script with hooks galore to keep you interested if you just look a little deeper and a little longer at it.

The Black Tower is thirty pages between covers and every page is a sumptuous atmospheric feast from Perkins and colorist Mike Spicer. From the rainswept streets of modern day London to a face brick butchery backroom to a modern airport, the art team make you feel you there navigating these environments with the character. There’s a gritty semi photographic realism to Perkins style that’s nicely accentuated by Spicer’s colors and the result really is a very good looking comic book that has an evocative, moody and mysterious aura to it but also feels part modern spy thriller at the same time. Perkins’ action scenes are dynamic, split across multiple panels that use spacing brilliantly to communicate the movement and violence in the moment when required but Perkins is also capable of fantastic intimate moments between characters with fantastic facial fully realized expressions that speak to both what the character is saying in the moment but also imbue the character with a real sense of identity. Perkins makes the extraordinary part of the ordinary landscape while Spicer uses color to give those moments of supernatural occurrence some zing with color, the doppelganger panel is a great example of this. Perkins is one of those artists that goes heavy on the solid black in his art and uses it very effectively. Shadows become an intricate part of the scene accentuating, hiding, or defining the story he’s telling page after page. This has the added effect of really making Spicer’s colors pop. One great example of Perkins use of shadows is in an early scene where two mystery figures discuss Daniel’s future from behind one way glass. The black shrouds the men hiding their faces with only hints at there features giving the story the mystery noir the script is asking for.

Andworld Design are on lettering and don’t set a foot wrong. Perfect word emphasis in the speech bubbles, bold capitals where required to emphasize volume and perfect placement to compliment the image. Whether it’s a Bobby’s indignant OI! or a werewolf’s cheeky knock at the door the lettering not only moves the story along but becomes part of the art and flow on the page, the magic bond between worded script and drawn and colored images combining together to become something greater than the sum of its individual parts.