Early this year Saltillo, a trip-hop electronic meets violin and cello project from Chicago-based artist Menton J. Matthews III (aka Menton3), released his new album Monocyte on Artoffact Records. The album is a concept album and serves as a soundtrack to a 4 part graphic novel series of the same name published by IDW Publishing. EJTower offers insight on parts 1 and 2 of the Monocyte series, with parts 3 and 4 coming out this spring.

Monocyte
written and illustrated by Menton3
reviewed by : EJTower

Reading Monocyte while listening to its soundtrack is like contemplating a Zen Koan cut-up by William S. Burroughs as Aphex Twin plays strings in the corner shouting Shakespeare. Monocyte, the graphic series created by Menton3 and released by IDW Publishing, is a beautifully illustrated dark universe set in the distant future where two cities hold the world in immortal stagnation. Our Lovecraftian hero, Monocyte, like his biological namesake (a monocyte is an aspect of the innate immune system part of the body’s first line of defense against disease) is sent forth by Death to destroy the source of immortality and end the deathless logjam that is like a plague on the natural systems of the world.

It is unfortunate that Monocyte reads like a crossword puzzle written by Sir James George Frazer. If you don’t know what I am talking about, then much of the writing in the graphic series will also be a gloss to you. Menton3 is an unquestionably talented artist whose illustrations have excellently conveyed a gray mood and alien future, but all of the enjoyment of Monocyte comes from these talents alone. A minor index of the ideas tossed about in the first two issues would include a mixture of Judeo-Christian mythology, early pagan mythos, references to immoralist transhumanism, and direct quotes from Shakespeare. The ideas contained in the text hint at a genius root for a world and story that just failed to grow. The text serves mostly to confuse the reader with an antiqued style of speech. The story contains an ever growing number of mythically named characters that advance themselves upon the reader but never advance the plot. With so many dramatically named guns introduced in the first act, it makes me skeptical that they will all be adequately fired by the conclusion of the play.

I have seen this series compared to the works of Grant Morrison, author of The Invisibles, another comic series that draws heavily from occult sources. This comparison is wildly unfair to the writing of Mr. Morrison. His text actually clarified the ideas pushed on the audience so that we could think about them. In Monocyte the ideas clog the mind with antiquated vocabulary and fail entirely to bring any level of understanding to the world that Menton3 has created in his art. Simply overlaying the design of an astrolabe and the unicursal hexagram on the images does not draw the audience any deeper into the work, though it looks very cool.

The experience of the graphic series with the addition of the soundtrack by Saltillo was still extremely enjoyable. The strange esoteric samplings merged with strings served to dramatize the presented images and draw me on where the text failed. Saltillo, a project of Menton3 himself, is a testament to the ability of the man to evoke mood and establish setting through complex reference. Those interested can enjoy it immediately on Spotify, and purchase the album at Storming the Base. My strong objections to the writing and story aside, I am watching Menton3 for future projects.

read the free prequel on Issuu

The Veil
written by El Torres
illustration by Gabriel Hernandez

reviewd by : EJTower

As the old proverb has it: in the land of the blind, the one eyed woman is queen.  But in a detective noir world tainted by the unseen presence of a viscous, Lovecraft-inspired zoology, actually seeing is a serious problem.  Christine Luna has many problems as a private investigator, she works for the dead, taking her living from the forgotten savings accounts and death throws of her clients’ remaining credit cards, but she has finally reached rock bottom, bank broke.  Returning to her home town in Maine, she plans to sell off the old family property, but instead unearths ghosts from her past that answer questions she never dared to ask.  Ghosts that force her to remember: the accident that gave her the power to see beyond the veil, the world that lurks beyond, and the one who is waiting there to come through.

In The Veil, El Torres writes a story worthy of the Lovecraft mythos that is fused perfectly with the frenetic, atmospheric art of Gabriel Hernandez.  The art manages the impossible perfectly, by illustrating moments of indescribable horror, while maintaining the noir feel in moments of apparent normalcy.  The singular failure of the work is the rapid conclusion, which might have benefited from a more gradual turn around and fewer hasty transitions from place to place, but this does not seriously detract from the whole.  This graphic novel is a fitting choice for anyone who can properly speak the name Cthulhu, although the great old one does not appear in this work.  Originally released in four single issues, it is now available in a single book from IDW Publishing.

overall 8 . story 7 . art 8

more info at www.idwpublishing.com