David Lillie

"Flight To Starfall" is the continuation of the Dreamkeepers comic series, picking up where "Awakenings" left off. The characters play off one another more here; as they're fairly distinct, this works pretty well. Lillie and Thomas do have a few mischievous characters, as often happens when dialogue is used for humor, but they still act differently and the cast is fairly sizable (8 characters get a lot of page time here, and another few play key roles).

They also work with longer action sequences, as well - a long chase down a mountain, and a standoff in a house - and it fits the book well. A less effective change is the somewhat raunchy humor - there in the previous book, but more common here, and kind of overdone. Though the writing has those hiccups, the art is slightly improved over the previous volume - a little cleaner and fewer leftover lines, with the same interesting art style.

Though things pick up on the action front, there's not that much of the broader world brought in beyond short-term plot movement, even beyond the action sequences. It's a good volume, but hopefully Lillie and Thomas start to flesh out the world and background plot more as the series continues.… (plus d'informations)

Given the medium, long-form comic series often have to develop in smaller chunks, released over longer periods of time. The first volume of "Dreamkeepers", "Awakenings" isn't an exception to this - it's the first 3 chapters of a longer tale. This isn't to say anything about the quality of the book; the 3 authors (David Lillie, Liz Thomas, and Brad Higgenbotham - although the latter isn't involved in future volumes) have a fairly unique idea and know what they're doing with it.

The world of Dreamkeepers is filled with anthropomorphized creatures, but rather than being based on one specific animal or another, they're cartoonish amalgams of animal features, rendered in an interesting style. The backgrounds are done in a more realistic manner, but it all works very well (and in full color), apart from some leftover sketch lines. (Part of the sketch undertone is the inking, but part of it seems unfinished).

The writing and pacing both work, too - the book is broken into a 3-chapter structure; the chapter breaks are well-placed and the plot moves smoothly along, clearly part of a larger whole. The larger story itself seems to have some basis in the old "return of an ancient evil" storyline but has enough going on - and an interesting enough world - to show promise beyond that. "Awakenings" shows great potential as a start to a new series.… (plus d'informations)