REVIEW: ‘Proof’ by Alex Grecian, Riley Rossmo and Tyler Jenkins

Proof (2008) by Gre­cian, Rossmo and Jenk­ins is a dig­i­tal comic pub­lished by Image and there is a paper­back ver­sion as well. iVerse is a dig­i­tal comic book dis­trib­uter for the iPhone and iTouch. As of this writ­ing, there are ten titles avail­able at the App store.

Mike Cane blogged last month about iVerse Comics show­ing up at the iTunes App store. I am a rel­a­tively new comic book fan and nat­u­rally, I went straight there to see what was offered. I down­loaded 3 titles on Sat­ur­day and came way excited about PROOF. If you enjoy The X-Files or Men in Black then Proof should not be missed.

In “Proof” the Lodge is a secret agency funded by the US and Canada to inves­ti­gate strange and unusual activ­ity. Mys­te­ri­ous crea­tures that are “sighted” but lack phys­i­cal evi­dence or proof of their exis­tence are labeled as “cryp­tids.” The comic opens with the dis­ap­pear­ance of a mar­ried cou­ple hik­ing in the Kekek­abic trail in Min­nesota and a dan­ger­ous cryp­tid might be involved.

The Lodge is a group of ex-FBI agents who act as “ambas­sadors” between humans and cryp­tids. They pro­vide a habi­tat for the more dan­ger­ous cryp­tids who must live near humans. They don’t hunt them but iso­late them from humans.

The story mostly fol­lows two char­ac­ters — Gin­ger Brown, an FBI agent who dur­ing a bur­glary has a run in with a golem in the dia­mond dis­trict of New York. Her lieu­tenant doesn’t believe her report of events but some­one else does and thus she finds her­self pro­moted and sent to Wash­ing­ton, D.C. There she learns that not only do golems exist but so does big­foot, fairies and other mys­te­ri­ous creatures.

Then there is Agent John Prufrock or “Proof” and lone “sasquatch” look­ing for more of his peo­ple. And no, he was not the “big­foot” seen on the famous footage at Bluff Creek. We meet him dur­ing a rou­tine train­ing exer­cise. Proof pro­vided for much of the humor and here is one where he’s been hit with paint balls and yells “you got me” but he still gets ham­mered anyway:

I am really excited about ‘Proof’ and have already read the first two install­ments thus far and want more. There is much that I’ve left out for your enjoy­ment. If you enjoy folk­lore and mys­tery then down­load this comic. It has sub­stance, great char­ac­ters and inter­est­ing monsters.

What I also enjoyed besides the char­ac­ters and the plot was the inte­gra­tion of lit­tle known facts and myths behind some of the most mys­te­ri­ous crea­tures while at the same time explain­ing to read­ers what is going on in the story. Every­thing is not fully eplained but I never felt lost.

There seems to be a con­flict started by Proof that con­cerns his partner’s lack of expe­ri­ence. I’m sure that will be elab­o­rated fully fur­ther on but mean­while, the two agents are assigned a case which will be the focus of the third install­ment (sorry about the long sentence).

The story makes the case that humans are not alone in this world and that there must be some ker­nel of truth to some of the folk­lore we’ve heard through­out our life. I thought the authors did a great job of con­trast­ing the fan­tas­tic with that of real­ity. On the neg­a­tive side, the art­work was some­what of a eye­sore but I adapted. The story was good enough for me to over­look the artwork.

In clos­ing — I’m excited about the future of dig­i­tal comics and Proof is a wor­thy title to pick up. Oh, I did read Neo­zoic vol. 1 and 2 by Paul Ens, J. Korim and Jessie Lam and wasn’t impressed. The only thing going for that dig­i­tal comic is the graph­ics. I just wish there was a bet­ter story there, alas, there was not. Proof vol. 1 is free and avail­able right now and vol. 2 is avail­able right now for 99 cents and both can be down­loaded from iTunes. My grade, B+.

Proof vol.1 has 87 screens in full color and is com­pat­i­ble for iPhone and iTouch with 2.0 soft­ware required. Proof vol.2 has 87 screens and is in full color. iVerse comic appli­ca­tion work like this: you slide your fin­ger across the screen to turn the page(s). There are three page tran­si­tions to choose from: fade, slide or curl. To reach this you must tap the screen and an “i” infor­ma­tion icon will pop up. I strug­gled with get­ting the darn thing to open. There is also scroll bar where you are able to quickly scroll quickly but it is a numer­i­cal value and while read­ing, I didn’t mem­o­rize screen number(s).

Cor­rec­tion: Proof, vol.1 is avail­able in paper­back. I apol­o­gize for not adding that bit of info but being a ebook fan I rec­om­mend the dl’d ver­sion of course.

For Fur­ther Reading

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