Lunar Lodge #1: Picture Pains

Lunar Lodge #1 is a book with all the right ingredients. Its tone is brilliant, mired in an icky fog reminiscent of Alan Wake, and the bond between the writer and artist allows the book’s atmosphere and visuals to communicate more than any overzealous author’s textbooks could. It has a main character who, while maybe a bit too stiff, is wrestling with strong internal conflicts as a dark mystery unfolds around him. It has all the parts necessary to create a cult hit comic with an energy somewhere between Hemingway and Stephen King, and yet, it frankly barely pulls itself together with anything of note by the end.

This book is an incredibly dry first issue, its mystery flat, and its main character, Rob Moreland, a fatiguing sack of misery without a hint of dimensional personality to him anywhere in this issue. However, the book’s overall stunted delivery of its intriguing concepts does not mitigate the craft or ideas on display. While it’s boring at worst, Lunar Lodge #1 isn’t a total travesty. There’s a lot to admire in how it tells its story and loads its ideas that may find themselves elevated in future issues thanks to the team at least laying out the groundwork for something interesting to spring from.

The issue focuses on two key plot lines that converge at the book’s end to bring together the mystery of Lunar Lodge and the growing despair that Rob finds himself in as life, in every form, continues to remind him of his inadequacy. It’s difficult to discuss what’s going on without spoiling the plot’s major reveals, which all do a good job of leaving the reader asking questions while not completely lost and unengaged with the story.

Getting to those big questions, however, is a slog. As a main character, Rob lacks anything of note. His personality is non-existent, his problems are so beyond generic that his significant lack of character leaves him as this gray mush of misery that’s impossible to find any reason to care for as we learn little to nothing about him besides his shitty life, which isn’t the point of the mystery in this issue. He’s just a nothing burger, but the book’s true mystery doesn’t do much making up for the lack of engaging characters, as Rob isn’t the only one to incur yawns.

The Lunar Lodge in question and all of its introduced in a way that doesn’t heighten intrigue but instead deflates it. The ideas in question do have a lot of intricate aspects to them that are locked behind spoiler gates, but one’s willingness to wait for those ideas to come to fruition is reliant on finding something to enjoy writing-wise in an overall dull package.

The art is quite solid, with an uncanny valley effect taking over facial work to the point of no return. While the colors pop with flare and the art itself does a great job at communicating narrative with a flow of art and paneling far more interesting than the book deserves, it’s just as easy to be pulled out of the book by the art as it is to become engrossed.

My biggest compliment to the team, which also happens to be one of the best things for a comic’s team to do, is that they pulled this off near symbiotically. The art dances with the words to pull together a story that only uses either when appropriate. The book isn’t scared to let the art speak for its characters, and vice versa with certain scenes slogged with a lot but absolutely necessary dialogue.