Written by Bill Stoddard
Art by Chris Royal
Color by Nimesh Morarji
Letters by Luke Stone
For Tenacious Comics
I’m so excited about Tenacious Comics right now, they have a lot of good stuff going on and they seem to have more people than just me on their team because they continue to have success with crowdfunding and new projects. So far this is the third book I have reviewed and I have yet to be let down.
Augmented treads on some ground that I find intriguing and covers a couple of different interesting topics. I’m not sure how much of each is supposed inject curiosity but the subject matter of Sci Fi type things like artificial enhancement coupled with the ever growing popularity of violent sports makes Augmented a serious yet action packed read. The Sci Fi aspect is light and only really touched in the augmentation part of the book but because of the nature and/or the reasoning behind the augmentation I see some morality issues arising. Not just morality in the augmenting of humans but with the reasoning behind it, Stoddard digs deep into social acceptance of things like augmentation and doubles down with a little jab at violent sports and its place in society. As I said I’m not sure if Stoddard is just trying to tell a story or if he is trying to solicit a deep conversation about society and what we value morally speaking but I can say that I don’t think it matters either way, this book can be taken for the great story it is or it can read and analyzed for the social implications of augmentation and violent sports. Pure entertainment or food for thought, either way Stoddard has done a great job with Augmented and has me wanting more like any good writer should leave the audience.
Royal and Morarji put a feel to Augmented that is very suiting and looks pleasant in some spots while being gruesome and grisly in other spots. The line work from Royal is definitive and clean cut, there are no spots where the lines and colors don’t match or work well together. I’m somewhat familiar with Morarji’s coloring skills as I have done reviews of other books he has colored and I can say that he has always been a solid color guy and his choice in color palettes is always valuable to the artist and the feel of the book.
Stone’s lettering rounds out the unsmooth edges and gives the book a final stamp of approval. Being essential to the end product the lettering is solid and aside from the few actions and exaggerated screams most of the lettering is average font and fits well within the book. I don’t think that there are many places where the lettering sticks out but I also don’t think that this book calls for that so in the end the fact that it blends in well and isn’t fancy is actually a huge compliment to Stone and his abilities.
Tenacious Comics can be found on their website and social media, Facebook and Twitter. So go out and give Augmented and all the other Tenacious titles a look see, I can almost guarantee a little something for everyone’s tastes at Tenacious!
