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The Wake #1-10
The Wake by Scott Snyder
New York Times bestselling author, Scott Snyder (American Vampire, Batman, Swamp Thing) and artist Sean Murphy (Punk Rock Jesus, Joe The Barbarian), the incredible team behind the miniseries American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest, are reuniting for the powerful miniseries: THE WAKE. When Marine Biologist Lee Archer is approached by the Department of Homeland Security for help with a new threat, she declines, but quickly realizes they won't take no for an answer. Soon she is plunging to the depths of the Arctic Circle to a secret, underwater oil rig filled with roughnecks and scientists on the brink of an incredible discovery. But when things go horribly wrong, this scientific safe haven will turn into a house of horrors at the bottom of the ocean!
Collects THE WAKE #1-10.
Collects THE WAKE #1-10.
Paperback
First published November 11, 2014
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1990 people want to read
About the author
Scott Snyder
1,501 books5,218 followersScott Snyder is the Eisner and Harvey Award winning writer on DC Comics Batman, Swamp Thing, and his original series for Vertigo, American Vampire. He is also the author of the short story collection, Voodoo Heart, published by the Dial Press in 2006. The paperback version was published in the summer of 2007.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 537 reviews
October 19, 2016
I was pretty invested in the story for the majority of this book.
It kind of ran off the rails toward the finish line, and (in my opinion) never really recovered the momentum it had during the first half.
The ending?
I'm not even sure what the hell happened...
So, it starts off in present day (or the past, depending on how you look at it) with acetologist whale/dolphin/porpoise expert named Lee Archer. She gets an offer she can't refuse from a government agentish guy, to help them with something they've discovered in the ocean that is making a whale-like call. They have the 'animal' hidden away in an illegal deep-sea drilling rig, and they need Archer to take a peek at it.
Hint: Turns out, it's not a whale.
Archer isn't the only one who's been called into check this sucker out. There's a folklore expert, a deep-sea hunter, and another scientist who happens to be the guy who got her thrown off of her last project.
Anyway, it soon becomes apparent that this creature is some sort of a chompy-mermaid with a hallucinogenic venom that squirts out of its eyes.
Worse, its got friends.
Lots and lots of friends that are tearing the underwater rig apart. And it looks like once they're done eating Archer & Co., they're headed toward the shoreline.
*cue dramatic music*
Fast forward a couple of hundred years, and now we're following the story of Leeward, a young lady with a dolphin who hunts the mermaids...and sells their eyeballs.
The creatures have taken over the world (sort of) by causing tsunamis that flooded the shores, and driven the puny humans into their mouths.
Leeward is searching for this Lost Voice on the airwaves that she thinks holds the key to stopping the mer...whatevers.
The government (such as it is) is after her, and she has to band together with pirates to find this Lost Message.
Oddly enough, it seems like this voice on the airwaves is coming from Archer.
But that can't be true.
Or can it?
*cue the damn music again.*
Alright. If you haven't read this, but plan to? Please don't click the spoiler tag. The whole book hinges on keeping you in suspense as to what the hell these things are, and why they're trying to eat us.
If you've read this, then you might understand why I think the ending jumped the shark just a little bit.
Get this review and more at:
It kind of ran off the rails toward the finish line, and (in my opinion) never really recovered the momentum it had during the first half.
The ending?
I'm not even sure what the hell happened...
So, it starts off in present day (or the past, depending on how you look at it) with a
Hint: Turns out, it's not a whale.
Archer isn't the only one who's been called into check this sucker out. There's a folklore expert, a deep-sea hunter, and another scientist who happens to be the guy who got her thrown off of her last project.
Anyway, it soon becomes apparent that this creature is some sort of a chompy-mermaid with a hallucinogenic venom that squirts out of its eyes.
Worse, its got friends.
Lots and lots of friends that are tearing the underwater rig apart. And it looks like once they're done eating Archer & Co., they're headed toward the shoreline.
*cue dramatic music*
Fast forward a couple of hundred years, and now we're following the story of Leeward, a young lady with a dolphin who hunts the mermaids...and sells their eyeballs.
The creatures have taken over the world (sort of) by causing tsunamis that flooded the shores, and driven the puny humans into their mouths.
Leeward is searching for this Lost Voice on the airwaves that she thinks holds the key to stopping the mer...whatevers.
The government (such as it is) is after her, and she has to band together with pirates to find this Lost Message.
Oddly enough, it seems like this voice on the airwaves is coming from Archer.
But that can't be true.
Or can it?
*cue the damn music again.*
Alright. If you haven't read this, but plan to? Please don't click the spoiler tag. The whole book hinges on keeping you in suspense as to what the hell these things are, and why they're trying to eat us.
If you've read this, then you might understand why I think the ending jumped the shark just a little bit.
Get this review and more at:
May 5, 2015
This book is divided into two parts: the comic book’s present and the comic book’s future.
The present section reads like The Incredible Mr. Limpet meets The Creature From the Black Lagoon. Not too bad.
The future reads likeWaterworld meets The Abyss and features my least favorite comic character – Talky von Talkerson.
“So Talky, this is a comic book, essentially a visual medium, what brings you here?”
“Well, Jeff, it seems that Scott Snyder wanted to include a ginormous amount of background material and there wasn’t a quick, painless way to take an information dump, so here I am.”
“You do realize that when you show up, you have a tendency to really slow down the pace of a story?”
“Hey, this book won an Eisner for Best Limited Series, so quit complaining.”
“Was it a pity vote or a “we’re sorry we didn’t like your Batman story” vote?”
“Hey, I don’t have to sit here and take this. Someone needs my help with an X-Men comic.”
The present section reads like The Incredible Mr. Limpet meets The Creature From the Black Lagoon. Not too bad.
The future reads likeWaterworld meets The Abyss and features my least favorite comic character – Talky von Talkerson.
“So Talky, this is a comic book, essentially a visual medium, what brings you here?”
“Well, Jeff, it seems that Scott Snyder wanted to include a ginormous amount of background material and there wasn’t a quick, painless way to take an information dump, so here I am.”
“You do realize that when you show up, you have a tendency to really slow down the pace of a story?”
“Hey, this book won an Eisner for Best Limited Series, so quit complaining.”
“Was it a pity vote or a “we’re sorry we didn’t like your Batman story” vote?”
“Hey, I don’t have to sit here and take this. Someone needs my help with an X-Men comic.”
November 20, 2015
Rethinking Genre Conventions
Snyder and Murphy deliriously experiment with a bunch of sci-fi, horror and pirate tropes, deconstructing and then reassembling them in different, more courageous and holistic ways.
The moral of the story brings to mind something legendary film director Stanley Kubrick once said:
“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”
The Wake is not an easy read, but it can be an immensely rewarding one if you are willing to leave genre expectations behind, and allow your synapses to fire at their own pace.
Snyder and Murphy deliriously experiment with a bunch of sci-fi, horror and pirate tropes, deconstructing and then reassembling them in different, more courageous and holistic ways.
The moral of the story brings to mind something legendary film director Stanley Kubrick once said:
“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”
The Wake is not an easy read, but it can be an immensely rewarding one if you are willing to leave genre expectations behind, and allow your synapses to fire at their own pace.
August 4, 2014
I read and reviewed The Wake Part One (collecting #1-5) in November 2013 and read Part Two (collecting #6-10) recently so I’ve compiled both reviews into this one for the complete 10-issue collected edition. I know, a bad Scott Snyder comic! Well, it had to happen eventually.
*
The Wake Part One Review
Dr Lee Archer is a cetologist and a single mother who’s approached by a shady government agent to take part in a secret underwater operation to identify the source of a strange sound off the Alaskan coast. The sound belongs to what seems to be a mermaid – but mermaids aren’t real (or are they?) and this one looks and behaves far more monstrously than their fairy tale creations, as Archer and her team are about to discover.
This is the first Scott Snyder book since American Vampire that I’ve not completely loved partly because the characters are so two-dimensional and partly because the story just isn’t very interesting. Archer (just the name!) is your standard moral scientist-type – you know Bill Paxton in Twister? That kind. She even has an evil double who’s in bed with the government – you can almost hear the same dialogue, “they’re not in it for the science, man!”.
Agent Cruz is your standard issue man in black government type, who talks in a monotone, is very secretive, and of course turns out to be duplicitous, while there’s a bounty hunter character who feels like he’s stepped out of an 80s action movie, who’s here to hunt rare species ‘cos he’s a tough guy! All of the characters are highly unoriginal and boring, and aren’t helped by Sean Murphy’s art. If you’ve read Punk Rock Jesus, you’ll notice how similar Archer looks to Gwen and Agent Cruz to Thomas McKael – it’s like Murphy has a handful of character designs and has to keep reusing them.
Story-wise, it’s fairly ok up to a point and then it becomes repetitive. The fish monster predictably escapes because there’s no story otherwise, you’ve got humans trapped in limited space, a cat and mouse chase ensues, and then the ending happens. Reading several issues in a row which are basically just characters running from a monster is frankly boring and there’s little variety in what happens. Move from one part of the station to the next, repeat.
Snyder does throw in some interesting scenes now and then, showing us a dystopian Waterworld-esque Earth set 200 years in the future, before hurtling us back hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, of years back to the past, hinting at a much larger and mysterious story. I loved seeing these but unfortunately they are very brief snippets so most of the time you’re spent with a crew of unconvincing cardboard cut-outs running around. The good news is that the second part looks to be entirely set in the dystopian future with a new set of characters so I anticipate liking that book a lot more than I did this one.
Snyder’s writing in The Wake Part One isn’t especially brilliant – he’s always had the propensity to throw in plot-relevant anecdotes into his stories though in The Wake they feel very heavy-handed and awkwardly placed. At one point in the middle of a chase, the characters pause and wait while Archer tells a story! Murphy’s art is fine and I think his fish monster designs are effectively scary but I’m still not as in love with his art as many others are. The Wake is definitely readable despite the script’s flaws and has some interesting story moments but it’s not nearly as good as other books Snyder’s writing at the moment like Batman and Superman Unchained for DC. The Wake Part One is like Aliens crossed with The Abyss but not nearly as good as either.
*
The Wake Part Two Review
If the first part of The Wake was Scott Snyder’s version of The Abyss, the second part is his take on Waterworld.
Set 200 years after the events of Part One, the world is now a different place thanks to the fish monsters melting the polar icecaps. Water has flooded the lowest landmasses and humanity survives in loose, scavenger-type camps.
Leeward, who we glimpsed here and there in Part One, is now the main character. She’s a fish monster head hunter (literally) with her glider and her trusty dolphin Dash. But she’s searching for a voice on the airwaves - someone called Lee Archer - who could hold the answer to saving the world.
I am a massive Scott Snyder fan, though mostly for his work on Batman. I have given The Wake my full attention though it hasn’t impressed me much with the first part turning out to be just ok. The second part though, which I expected to be even better for some reason, is a real let down. You could even say it’s a mess!
Leeward’s journey is always obscure and difficult to follow. She muddles along from one strange scenario to the next - she turns on a radio and is chased by this world’s authorities because radio’s are bad?, then she’s in a slave ship, then she’s with pirates, then in the arctic (I thought all the ice melted?), then… I won’t spoil it, but it’s basically Snyder rushing his character from one thing to the next without giving sufficient reason to the reader why. And without knowing why, it’s difficult to care about what’s happening.
Snyder’s world-building isn’t very convincing either. The various colonies feel disparate and isolated but there’s apparently some kind of ruling body with a crazy old woman in charge - it just doesn’t seem like it would work. Again, this felt rushed and not very cohesive, like it was thrown together. And none of the characters felt fleshed out - Vivienne, Marlow, Mary, they were all cliches. Vivienne the scheming person in charge, Marlow the military tough, and Mary was the pirate captain who was defined by his action of sipping from his arm glass. They weren’t characters at all.
But by far the worst is the final issue of the mini-series which was just one long exposition filled info dump. Snyder likes to throw in random scenes and WTF moments for the reader - he does it in all of his comics - which is sometimes effective and works well in Batman, but not in The Wake. He waits until the last issue to explain why there were scenes of cavemen interacting with fish monsters, why there was what looked like the moon exploding earlier in the series, what the drop is, why… well, that’d be a spoiler, so I’ll stop there. But basically he tried to do too much in this series, left it far too late to explain everything and it felt like it all overwhelmed him by the end. He tried to make all the random pieces fit and he just couldn’t.
I don’t love Sean Murphy’s art like some people - it feels too scratchy and his character models are more-or-less the same in every book - but it’s not terrible and he can draw scale really well. Some of the scenes call for the cast to be affected by massive creatures/vehicles, and Murphy’s able to pull off that effect nicely. And Andrew Robinson’s covers have been excellent throughout the series too.
The Wake has been a very patchy sci-fi horror story that completely falls apart in the last couple issues, so much so that the last page could be seen as Snyder shrugging and saying to the reader “well, you enjoyed the ride didn’t you? Sorry about dropping the ball for the finale!”.
The Wake is definitely my least favourite Snyder book and about the only one I’d say is quite poor. Disappointing.
*
I gave Part One 3 stars and I’ll give Part Two 2 stars, so let’s split the difference and call this a 2.5 star book.
*
The Wake Part One Review
Dr Lee Archer is a cetologist and a single mother who’s approached by a shady government agent to take part in a secret underwater operation to identify the source of a strange sound off the Alaskan coast. The sound belongs to what seems to be a mermaid – but mermaids aren’t real (or are they?) and this one looks and behaves far more monstrously than their fairy tale creations, as Archer and her team are about to discover.
This is the first Scott Snyder book since American Vampire that I’ve not completely loved partly because the characters are so two-dimensional and partly because the story just isn’t very interesting. Archer (just the name!) is your standard moral scientist-type – you know Bill Paxton in Twister? That kind. She even has an evil double who’s in bed with the government – you can almost hear the same dialogue, “they’re not in it for the science, man!”.
Agent Cruz is your standard issue man in black government type, who talks in a monotone, is very secretive, and of course turns out to be duplicitous, while there’s a bounty hunter character who feels like he’s stepped out of an 80s action movie, who’s here to hunt rare species ‘cos he’s a tough guy! All of the characters are highly unoriginal and boring, and aren’t helped by Sean Murphy’s art. If you’ve read Punk Rock Jesus, you’ll notice how similar Archer looks to Gwen and Agent Cruz to Thomas McKael – it’s like Murphy has a handful of character designs and has to keep reusing them.
Story-wise, it’s fairly ok up to a point and then it becomes repetitive. The fish monster predictably escapes because there’s no story otherwise, you’ve got humans trapped in limited space, a cat and mouse chase ensues, and then the ending happens. Reading several issues in a row which are basically just characters running from a monster is frankly boring and there’s little variety in what happens. Move from one part of the station to the next, repeat.
Snyder does throw in some interesting scenes now and then, showing us a dystopian Waterworld-esque Earth set 200 years in the future, before hurtling us back hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, of years back to the past, hinting at a much larger and mysterious story. I loved seeing these but unfortunately they are very brief snippets so most of the time you’re spent with a crew of unconvincing cardboard cut-outs running around. The good news is that the second part looks to be entirely set in the dystopian future with a new set of characters so I anticipate liking that book a lot more than I did this one.
Snyder’s writing in The Wake Part One isn’t especially brilliant – he’s always had the propensity to throw in plot-relevant anecdotes into his stories though in The Wake they feel very heavy-handed and awkwardly placed. At one point in the middle of a chase, the characters pause and wait while Archer tells a story! Murphy’s art is fine and I think his fish monster designs are effectively scary but I’m still not as in love with his art as many others are. The Wake is definitely readable despite the script’s flaws and has some interesting story moments but it’s not nearly as good as other books Snyder’s writing at the moment like Batman and Superman Unchained for DC. The Wake Part One is like Aliens crossed with The Abyss but not nearly as good as either.
*
The Wake Part Two Review
If the first part of The Wake was Scott Snyder’s version of The Abyss, the second part is his take on Waterworld.
Set 200 years after the events of Part One, the world is now a different place thanks to the fish monsters melting the polar icecaps. Water has flooded the lowest landmasses and humanity survives in loose, scavenger-type camps.
Leeward, who we glimpsed here and there in Part One, is now the main character. She’s a fish monster head hunter (literally) with her glider and her trusty dolphin Dash. But she’s searching for a voice on the airwaves - someone called Lee Archer - who could hold the answer to saving the world.
I am a massive Scott Snyder fan, though mostly for his work on Batman. I have given The Wake my full attention though it hasn’t impressed me much with the first part turning out to be just ok. The second part though, which I expected to be even better for some reason, is a real let down. You could even say it’s a mess!
Leeward’s journey is always obscure and difficult to follow. She muddles along from one strange scenario to the next - she turns on a radio and is chased by this world’s authorities because radio’s are bad?, then she’s in a slave ship, then she’s with pirates, then in the arctic (I thought all the ice melted?), then… I won’t spoil it, but it’s basically Snyder rushing his character from one thing to the next without giving sufficient reason to the reader why. And without knowing why, it’s difficult to care about what’s happening.
Snyder’s world-building isn’t very convincing either. The various colonies feel disparate and isolated but there’s apparently some kind of ruling body with a crazy old woman in charge - it just doesn’t seem like it would work. Again, this felt rushed and not very cohesive, like it was thrown together. And none of the characters felt fleshed out - Vivienne, Marlow, Mary, they were all cliches. Vivienne the scheming person in charge, Marlow the military tough, and Mary was the pirate captain who was defined by his action of sipping from his arm glass. They weren’t characters at all.
But by far the worst is the final issue of the mini-series which was just one long exposition filled info dump. Snyder likes to throw in random scenes and WTF moments for the reader - he does it in all of his comics - which is sometimes effective and works well in Batman, but not in The Wake. He waits until the last issue to explain why there were scenes of cavemen interacting with fish monsters, why there was what looked like the moon exploding earlier in the series, what the drop is, why… well, that’d be a spoiler, so I’ll stop there. But basically he tried to do too much in this series, left it far too late to explain everything and it felt like it all overwhelmed him by the end. He tried to make all the random pieces fit and he just couldn’t.
I don’t love Sean Murphy’s art like some people - it feels too scratchy and his character models are more-or-less the same in every book - but it’s not terrible and he can draw scale really well. Some of the scenes call for the cast to be affected by massive creatures/vehicles, and Murphy’s able to pull off that effect nicely. And Andrew Robinson’s covers have been excellent throughout the series too.
The Wake has been a very patchy sci-fi horror story that completely falls apart in the last couple issues, so much so that the last page could be seen as Snyder shrugging and saying to the reader “well, you enjoyed the ride didn’t you? Sorry about dropping the ball for the finale!”.
The Wake is definitely my least favourite Snyder book and about the only one I’d say is quite poor. Disappointing.
*
I gave Part One 3 stars and I’ll give Part Two 2 stars, so let’s split the difference and call this a 2.5 star book.
May 4, 2016
[WARNING: Some spoilers may be at work.]
2.5/5 Stars
For me, the only thing confusing about 'The Cabin in the Woods' was why the bureaucrat in charge of feeding teenagers to the elder gods gave a flying fuck about Mermen. Of all the monsters and mutants and demons and kaiju stalking the ten thousand sub-levels of the Cabin, the multitude of archetypal horrors that have dwelled in The-Darkness-Beyond-The-Fire's-Glow since the Paleolithic... why a fucking Merman? Mermaids and Mermen are the least interesting mythological creatures I can think of, with the possible exception of Unicorns.
Well, Scott Snyder disagrees with me, and apparently needed to see a Merman kill someone as desperately as Bureaucrat No. 1. In both cases it was a bad idea... but it turned out better for Snyder than it should have. 'The Wake' is full of slightly interesting fishboy action, if that's something you find appealing. I'm obviously less than thrilled with 'The Wake', though it's far from complete shit. Sean Murphy's retro-80's art recalls 'Dark Knight Returns'-era Frank Miller and the sketchy inks of Klaus Janson, with the angular, scratchy influence of Bill Sienkiewicz. It's not my favorite style, a bit too frenetic and busy for clear story-telling, but Murphy's talent is undeniable, and there's some outstanding imagery in 'The Wake'.
The series is made up of two slightly interconnected stories. The first is set in the present day, a pretty standard monster-thriller involving a team of 'best-in-their-field' specialists assembled by a powerful and secretive organization, then transported to a massive deep-sea 'ghost rig', where the crew have discovered a creepy ass mermaid. Merman. Whatever. Need I say things go horribly wrong? Snyder's writing on this half of the series is unworthy of someone with his rep; it's thoroughly mediocre, predictable, and dull.
The characters are action film clichés: Lee Archer, the brilliant female scientist who has all the answers, and proves it by recounting vaguely relevant reports about mysterious whale songs, even when they're all being chased through a collapsing deep-sea oil rig by mermonsters; her former boss, the regulation-spouting asshole, who has nothing to contribute and might as well have an expiry date stamped on his forehead; the erudite intellectual, who follows the heroine's lead by telling uninteresting stories about ancient myths at inappropriate times, when he really should be screaming and whimpering; the dolphin-munching uber-capitalist and great-white-hunter, who suddenly remembers he has a Kraken-killing Super-Sub, long after he should have fucking mentioned it. The deus ex machina nonsense grows very tiresome, very fast. Oh no, this section's flooded! We're cut off from our only means of escape! Wait, whale songs, for some reason! Of course! And... so on. You've read/seen this comic/movie before, I promise.
The second half of the book, however, is a different story. Literally. It almost seems like Snyder decided to salvage some shitty by-the-numbers screenplay he wrote in college by pairing it with the tale that makes up the second half of 'The Wake'. The material in issues 1-5 could have been jettisoned (and probably should have), without affecting the reader's ability to make sense of issues 6-10. To be clear -- the first half was terribly written, and the second half isn't much better... but it made for some decent scribbling, what with the Waterworld dark age and attack-dolphins.
The plot is... uninspired, and crashes headlong into a respectable case of writer's block, at the end. The evil mermonsters have manipulated climatic conditions enough to trigger an apocalypse of sorts, with tidal waves, hurricanes and earthquakes wiping the coastal cities into the ocean and radically reshaping the continents. A couple centuries after the collapse, the protagonist named Leeward hunts the 'Mers' for fun and profit, harvesting the hallucinogenic venom they spit at their prey to sell for recreational purposes. She has a techno-dolphin, naturally. A Narwhal would've been nifty, but I won't parse saddled sea-creatures.
When she's captured by ARM and the 'Governess', who pass for the government in this dystopian world, with an imposing tower and a super-cool SHIELD-style flying fortress called 'The Alamo', her arrest is inconvenient, coming as it does just as she hears the mysterious radio message she's been listening for all her life. You know, the one that will answer the question of the Mers (possibly extra-terrestrial) origin and purpose, and help mankind reclaim the planet. That one. But it's less than satisfying, so she's forced to escape her penury and forced labor, hands locked into the hundred-foot oars of a rusting ocean-liner; I liked the idea of a luxury cruise-ship turned into a floating prison, but there isn't any real exploration of it's inner workings, a consistent problem throughout the book. A colossal mermonster wrestles the ship, and she's rescued by pirates... a good place to end any tale. My lame retelling of 'stuff that happened to people', anyhow.
It's far from the end of 'The Wake', though, so I won't spoil everything, I guess. It's not brilliant, but it's passable, fairly predictable, entertainment. The first half nearly ruins the whole deal, for me, though Sean Murphy's artwork provides some measure of redemption. The second half is slightly improved by the grander scale, but again, most of the positive derives from the art; Murphy really shows off his talent. American Vampire -- good stuff, no question. But I've been waiting for the book that reaffirms Scott Snyder's status as the top-level writer many seem to think he is... after 'The Wake', I'm still waiting. Part 1 - 2 stars, Part 2 - 3 stars = 2.5 stars total.
And I still think Mermen suck. Mermaids are even worse; they're always presented as these erotic figures, being topless and whatnot. But they're fish. How hard up are sailors that they're dreaming about fucking a fish-woman? Oh, right... sailors spend months at sea, so very, I guess. But egg-laying creatures are not erotic. They are disgusting, or they are dinner. Centaurs on the other hand...
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2.5/5 Stars
For me, the only thing confusing about 'The Cabin in the Woods' was why the bureaucrat in charge of feeding teenagers to the elder gods gave a flying fuck about Mermen. Of all the monsters and mutants and demons and kaiju stalking the ten thousand sub-levels of the Cabin, the multitude of archetypal horrors that have dwelled in The-Darkness-Beyond-The-Fire's-Glow since the Paleolithic... why a fucking Merman? Mermaids and Mermen are the least interesting mythological creatures I can think of, with the possible exception of Unicorns.
Well, Scott Snyder disagrees with me, and apparently needed to see a Merman kill someone as desperately as Bureaucrat No. 1. In both cases it was a bad idea... but it turned out better for Snyder than it should have. 'The Wake' is full of slightly interesting fishboy action, if that's something you find appealing. I'm obviously less than thrilled with 'The Wake', though it's far from complete shit. Sean Murphy's retro-80's art recalls 'Dark Knight Returns'-era Frank Miller and the sketchy inks of Klaus Janson, with the angular, scratchy influence of Bill Sienkiewicz. It's not my favorite style, a bit too frenetic and busy for clear story-telling, but Murphy's talent is undeniable, and there's some outstanding imagery in 'The Wake'.
The series is made up of two slightly interconnected stories. The first is set in the present day, a pretty standard monster-thriller involving a team of 'best-in-their-field' specialists assembled by a powerful and secretive organization, then transported to a massive deep-sea 'ghost rig', where the crew have discovered a creepy ass mermaid. Merman. Whatever. Need I say things go horribly wrong? Snyder's writing on this half of the series is unworthy of someone with his rep; it's thoroughly mediocre, predictable, and dull.
The characters are action film clichés: Lee Archer, the brilliant female scientist who has all the answers, and proves it by recounting vaguely relevant reports about mysterious whale songs, even when they're all being chased through a collapsing deep-sea oil rig by mermonsters; her former boss, the regulation-spouting asshole, who has nothing to contribute and might as well have an expiry date stamped on his forehead; the erudite intellectual, who follows the heroine's lead by telling uninteresting stories about ancient myths at inappropriate times, when he really should be screaming and whimpering; the dolphin-munching uber-capitalist and great-white-hunter, who suddenly remembers he has a Kraken-killing Super-Sub, long after he should have fucking mentioned it. The deus ex machina nonsense grows very tiresome, very fast. Oh no, this section's flooded! We're cut off from our only means of escape! Wait, whale songs, for some reason! Of course! And... so on. You've read/seen this comic/movie before, I promise.
The second half of the book, however, is a different story. Literally. It almost seems like Snyder decided to salvage some shitty by-the-numbers screenplay he wrote in college by pairing it with the tale that makes up the second half of 'The Wake'. The material in issues 1-5 could have been jettisoned (and probably should have), without affecting the reader's ability to make sense of issues 6-10. To be clear -- the first half was terribly written, and the second half isn't much better... but it made for some decent scribbling, what with the Waterworld dark age and attack-dolphins.
The plot is... uninspired, and crashes headlong into a respectable case of writer's block, at the end. The evil mermonsters have manipulated climatic conditions enough to trigger an apocalypse of sorts, with tidal waves, hurricanes and earthquakes wiping the coastal cities into the ocean and radically reshaping the continents. A couple centuries after the collapse, the protagonist named Leeward hunts the 'Mers' for fun and profit, harvesting the hallucinogenic venom they spit at their prey to sell for recreational purposes. She has a techno-dolphin, naturally. A Narwhal would've been nifty, but I won't parse saddled sea-creatures.
When she's captured by ARM and the 'Governess', who pass for the government in this dystopian world, with an imposing tower and a super-cool SHIELD-style flying fortress called 'The Alamo', her arrest is inconvenient, coming as it does just as she hears the mysterious radio message she's been listening for all her life. You know, the one that will answer the question of the Mers (possibly extra-terrestrial) origin and purpose, and help mankind reclaim the planet. That one. But it's less than satisfying, so she's forced to escape her penury and forced labor, hands locked into the hundred-foot oars of a rusting ocean-liner; I liked the idea of a luxury cruise-ship turned into a floating prison, but there isn't any real exploration of it's inner workings, a consistent problem throughout the book. A colossal mermonster wrestles the ship, and she's rescued by pirates... a good place to end any tale. My lame retelling of 'stuff that happened to people', anyhow.
It's far from the end of 'The Wake', though, so I won't spoil everything, I guess. It's not brilliant, but it's passable, fairly predictable, entertainment. The first half nearly ruins the whole deal, for me, though Sean Murphy's artwork provides some measure of redemption. The second half is slightly improved by the grander scale, but again, most of the positive derives from the art; Murphy really shows off his talent. American Vampire -- good stuff, no question. But I've been waiting for the book that reaffirms Scott Snyder's status as the top-level writer many seem to think he is... after 'The Wake', I'm still waiting. Part 1 - 2 stars, Part 2 - 3 stars = 2.5 stars total.
And I still think Mermen suck. Mermaids are even worse; they're always presented as these erotic figures, being topless and whatnot. But they're fish. How hard up are sailors that they're dreaming about fucking a fish-woman? Oh, right... sailors spend months at sea, so very, I guess. But egg-laying creatures are not erotic. They are disgusting, or they are dinner. Centaurs on the other hand...
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June 14, 2024
Snyder harpoons a fascinating monster of deep sea horror, fantasy, and post-apocalyptic science-fiction. Complaints of an abstract ending are unfounded—it’s delightfully interpretative in an age of excessive literary hand-holding.
April 14, 2018
Will post review later.
December 5, 2014
Strong female main characters, including a cetologist (whale scientist!) trying to save the world. We're fighting sea monsters, in what is a basically all sea adventure story with some huge environmental implications, finally (though climate change is not the culprit here…sorry, fellow environmentalists!). (Sam Quixote says the first half is Synder's take on The Abyss, the second half his take on Water World, which is smart and funny and about right, I think). Snyder says he got the idea for it from an article ( I also recall) about the discovery of a sort of prehistoric shark they found off Japan in the mid 2000s, which is cool. Of course it makes you wonder what may be down there, what Yeti or Loch Ness monsters may exist at the deeper levels…. so he goes with that. He throws in a Dutch sea myth, and other things like that, Snyder does, because he likes to juxtapose colliding things to complicate and enrich the story from time to time, but this doesn't really go anyplace that significant, I thought. Still, I liked it!
May 24, 2020
Sürpriz izlenimler bırakan bir kitap, çizgi roman oldu. Çizimler, kurgu gerçekten güzel. Çok güzel bir film olabileceğini düşünüyorum. JBC'nin özenli, kaliteli basımına dikkat çekmem lazım. İnsanı alıp sürüklüyor. Değişik bir dünya tasviri arayanlar için kafa açıcı.
November 27, 2014
Well that was a confusing mess of an ending. The Wake does NOT live up to its promise and in the end we get a jumbled half-assed sci-fi story that makes absolutely no sense the way it is explained. The ending felt like Snyder was doing drugs and it made perfect sense to him in his mind but he couldn't translate it into meaning when sober. I'm not saying Snyder does drugs, I'm saying maybe if I did enough drugs the whole story would make sense.
First half (issues 1-5) A little horror story of some experts being called together in an Abyss-like under the ocean drilling rig to explain why the government found a merman. One so dangerous he is left unguarded. Well THAT's convenient. I kinda liked the first half. After its initial set up it felt a bit rushed and the characters a bit 2-D (except for the female lead Archer) but it was a nice little monster horror that doesn't end well.
Second half: We focus on the female Leeward 200 years after the mermen have caused a flood. This is a bit jolting but I thought it very inventive that Snyder didn't just start in the future but decided to do the horror story to set the stage. I just wished the first half tied in with the second half a bit better. The setting and the character of Leeward started off great then...oh my god it sucked. I'll try to boil it down to three major complaints
1) Viv the leader of a main colony of humans decides she needs to hunt down and kill anyone who is close to getting near "the truth". Throughout the second half she uses all her colony's resources to do this and killing everyone and everybody. But we NEVER LEARN WHY!!! Why the hell is she so obsessed? Doesn't she have enough on her plate saving her colony and protecting humans from merman? Her being so evil for evil's sake makes NO SENSE!! It smacked of "well we need a threat to Leeward and it can't be the merman because of "The Truth" so let's make it a human who doesn't want people to learn "The Truth"...for no reason.
2) At first it is cool, Leeward is searching for a signal, she is a hero on a quest...but then...she stumbles into a pirate ship that just accepts her and abandons everything to help her quest..for no real reason. I mean Leeward seems nice and all but would you give up a couple years of your life to help someone you just met on a weird quest...along with your crew of hundreds of people? The pirates helping her makes NO SENSE!!
3) The ending..ah the ending. Didn't understand it. Read it over three times still didn't get it. I mean I vaguely get some of it but not fully. And that, my friends, is horrible story telling. If I, a semi intelligent person, cannot understand your ending even though the last issue is almost all exposition (boring exposition) you are a bad and inarticulate writer. You have failed. And the parts I did understand were very, very lame. Tears wipe our memories away? Holy crap is that bad sci-fi. And fer gosh sakes, tie that into the two main characters not being able to produce tears. It felt like he wanted to but forgot to.
Ah well. An interesting idea poorly executed.
A shame too because Sean Murphy's art was spectacular. My first exposure to him and I am a big fan.
First half (issues 1-5) A little horror story of some experts being called together in an Abyss-like under the ocean drilling rig to explain why the government found a merman. One so dangerous he is left unguarded. Well THAT's convenient. I kinda liked the first half. After its initial set up it felt a bit rushed and the characters a bit 2-D (except for the female lead Archer) but it was a nice little monster horror that doesn't end well.
Second half: We focus on the female Leeward 200 years after the mermen have caused a flood. This is a bit jolting but I thought it very inventive that Snyder didn't just start in the future but decided to do the horror story to set the stage. I just wished the first half tied in with the second half a bit better. The setting and the character of Leeward started off great then...oh my god it sucked. I'll try to boil it down to three major complaints
1) Viv the leader of a main colony of humans decides she needs to hunt down and kill anyone who is close to getting near "the truth". Throughout the second half she uses all her colony's resources to do this and killing everyone and everybody. But we NEVER LEARN WHY!!! Why the hell is she so obsessed? Doesn't she have enough on her plate saving her colony and protecting humans from merman? Her being so evil for evil's sake makes NO SENSE!! It smacked of "well we need a threat to Leeward and it can't be the merman because of "The Truth" so let's make it a human who doesn't want people to learn "The Truth"...for no reason.
2) At first it is cool, Leeward is searching for a signal, she is a hero on a quest...but then...she stumbles into a pirate ship that just accepts her and abandons everything to help her quest..for no real reason. I mean Leeward seems nice and all but would you give up a couple years of your life to help someone you just met on a weird quest...along with your crew of hundreds of people? The pirates helping her makes NO SENSE!!
3) The ending..ah the ending. Didn't understand it. Read it over three times still didn't get it. I mean I vaguely get some of it but not fully. And that, my friends, is horrible story telling. If I, a semi intelligent person, cannot understand your ending even though the last issue is almost all exposition (boring exposition) you are a bad and inarticulate writer. You have failed. And the parts I did understand were very, very lame. Tears wipe our memories away? Holy crap is that bad sci-fi. And fer gosh sakes, tie that into the two main characters not being able to produce tears. It felt like he wanted to but forgot to.
Ah well. An interesting idea poorly executed.
A shame too because Sean Murphy's art was spectacular. My first exposure to him and I am a big fan.
February 10, 2015
OK I'm still on indies...yup.
So, Scott Snyder, pretty darn good writer, never embarrasses himself, always seems to have things thought out 5 steps ahead, much like his Batman...well I am here to tell you amigos...Mr. Scott done gone and fell upon his ass here.
Something can be great, really interesting, suspenseful, and have you wanting more...The Wake did that. It was like the best parts of The Abyss and Alien mashed up. I loved that the strong main character was female, kudos for that for sure. I liked the idea, ya OK, why not? I even liked the execution of the first half.
The second half was a departure, moving forward 200yrs in time from the end of the events at the first half. There's still a strong female character, but it's not like the Abyss, it's like Waterworld and Mad Max (which Waterworld without water would be...except awesome). I don't really understand the motivation for the villain here (another female character, good job Mr. Snyder!) she never gets explained much to me, and that's mildly problematic.
The male characters are all well done too, though some very easy cliches they all fit into, but that's OK, because this book is like a summer action blockbuster, it needs to move forward at a good pace.
Unfortunately, it all comes apart in the end, much like my Shallow friends who've read this have already pointed out (and the comparisons to Abyss and Waterworld I see as well, so obviously that was a blatant similarity). The idea was kooky but I was willing to invest, especially for the explanation of Humanity itself, but the last little bits? Nope. I had more willingness to believe the Fonz could jump his motorcycle over a shark.
So what are we left with here? A very well drawn and coloured book (nice shades of blue, green, super dark shades of water (blues, blacks, greens) and some pretty good writing for the first part. We're left with a fun setup that gives an unsatisfactory ending...
I suppose it would be like getting turned on, getting into it, and ending up with a sad handjob. It has the end result the same, but you just cannot enjoy it when you were expecting something else, y'know?
So thanks for the great Foreplay Mr. Synder, but next time, realize most of us don't enjoy the sad handjobs...
So, Scott Snyder, pretty darn good writer, never embarrasses himself, always seems to have things thought out 5 steps ahead, much like his Batman...well I am here to tell you amigos...Mr. Scott done gone and fell upon his ass here.
Something can be great, really interesting, suspenseful, and have you wanting more...The Wake did that. It was like the best parts of The Abyss and Alien mashed up. I loved that the strong main character was female, kudos for that for sure. I liked the idea, ya OK, why not? I even liked the execution of the first half.
The second half was a departure, moving forward 200yrs in time from the end of the events at the first half. There's still a strong female character, but it's not like the Abyss, it's like Waterworld and Mad Max (which Waterworld without water would be...except awesome). I don't really understand the motivation for the villain here (another female character, good job Mr. Snyder!) she never gets explained much to me, and that's mildly problematic.
The male characters are all well done too, though some very easy cliches they all fit into, but that's OK, because this book is like a summer action blockbuster, it needs to move forward at a good pace.
Unfortunately, it all comes apart in the end, much like my Shallow friends who've read this have already pointed out (and the comparisons to Abyss and Waterworld I see as well, so obviously that was a blatant similarity). The idea was kooky but I was willing to invest, especially for the explanation of Humanity itself, but the last little bits? Nope. I had more willingness to believe the Fonz could jump his motorcycle over a shark.
So what are we left with here? A very well drawn and coloured book (nice shades of blue, green, super dark shades of water (blues, blacks, greens) and some pretty good writing for the first part. We're left with a fun setup that gives an unsatisfactory ending...
I suppose it would be like getting turned on, getting into it, and ending up with a sad handjob. It has the end result the same, but you just cannot enjoy it when you were expecting something else, y'know?
So thanks for the great Foreplay Mr. Synder, but next time, realize most of us don't enjoy the sad handjobs...
September 16, 2014
Very disappointing series that starts off strong and gets worse and worse as it goes on. The first part is primarily a survival horror story involving a group of people stranded on a secret underwater drilling station/base, while mer-men (mer-creatures?) attack. It was fairly effective and had me wondering what was going to happen next. But then (big surprise), the story leaps ahead about two hundred years into a dystopian future, after the mer-creatures have somehow managed to melt the polar ice caps and raise sea levels considerably, flooding coastal cities and changing the world's map entirely. We're introduced to the character Leeward, who kills these creatures and takes their heads, because of the hallucinogenic enzymes contained therein. She's assisted by her dolphin buddy, Dash, and lives in the wreckage of a seaplane, crashed into a tree high above a cliff overlooking the water. All pretty cool, but then the story starts going downhill as she gets her hands on a radio, overhears a broadcast she wasn't meant to hear, and is suddenly thrown into one of the strangest, most disconnected, and incomprehensible plots I've come across in some time. And it only gets worse as the story wears on. The artwork by Sean Murphy is top-notch throughout and really the series' only saving grace. The story ultimately sputters to a "what-the-hell-just-happened?" conclusion that is very disappointing, given what came before.
January 26, 2019
Scott Snyder was certainly ambitious in this story. But, like Icarus, his ambition causes him to flame out.
The Wake is a modern update to the Merman story (as American Vampire was to the Vampire tale). But then it also becomes a story of aliens and a grand conspiracy. Sounds like a lot? It is. The threads that bind this plot together seemed frayed. The mediocre art does not help. Sean Murphy's art adds nothing to the story and while it does a decent job with some large scene panels, it's the rest of the close-in panels that show the lack of detail in the art.
basic plot? A scientist is called in by DHS to figure out where this mysterious signal is coming from. Transported to a deep-sea base (shouldn't this be DoD jurisdiction, not DHS? Just asking...) and finds...a monster. This "merman" is sending out a call. Eventually the kith and kin of the merman show up and royally fuck everything up. Then the story jumps 200 years years into the future, where the Merman made the ice caps melt and the world's coastal areas are flooded and the mermen rule the expanded seas. A girl named Leeward and her modified dolphin decide to go on a journey to find out about a mysterious message. The two stories then join into one plot. Sorry if that's vague, but if you are going to read this-I'd prefer you to go into it blind. Maybe you will like all the ways this comes together.
There are some seriously interesting things going on here. I rather liked the story of the regression of the aliens and the forgetfulness of tears (Rivers of Lethe, anyone?). That was the best part of the story. Had he focused on that without a lot of the other window dressing story points, I think, this would have been very good. But, it reminds me of a Grant Morrison story that starts off grand and ambitious and then proceeds to go off the rails. The whole dolphin snow boarding down the mountain was a bit much for me. Throw in the subpar art and this was a book I finished and sighed. I sighed because this could have been good. I respect the ambitious nature of the plot. But I can not countenance this art and the way in which the plot was developed. Sometimes, Mr. Snyder, less is more. Still kudos for not being banal and trite. At least it's original.
The Wake is a modern update to the Merman story (as American Vampire was to the Vampire tale). But then it also becomes a story of aliens and a grand conspiracy. Sounds like a lot? It is. The threads that bind this plot together seemed frayed. The mediocre art does not help. Sean Murphy's art adds nothing to the story and while it does a decent job with some large scene panels, it's the rest of the close-in panels that show the lack of detail in the art.
basic plot? A scientist is called in by DHS to figure out where this mysterious signal is coming from. Transported to a deep-sea base (shouldn't this be DoD jurisdiction, not DHS? Just asking...) and finds...a monster. This "merman" is sending out a call. Eventually the kith and kin of the merman show up and royally fuck everything up. Then the story jumps 200 years years into the future, where the Merman made the ice caps melt and the world's coastal areas are flooded and the mermen rule the expanded seas. A girl named Leeward and her modified dolphin decide to go on a journey to find out about a mysterious message. The two stories then join into one plot. Sorry if that's vague, but if you are going to read this-I'd prefer you to go into it blind. Maybe you will like all the ways this comes together.
There are some seriously interesting things going on here. I rather liked the story of the regression of the aliens and the forgetfulness of tears (Rivers of Lethe, anyone?). That was the best part of the story. Had he focused on that without a lot of the other window dressing story points, I think, this would have been very good. But, it reminds me of a Grant Morrison story that starts off grand and ambitious and then proceeds to go off the rails. The whole dolphin snow boarding down the mountain was a bit much for me. Throw in the subpar art and this was a book I finished and sighed. I sighed because this could have been good. I respect the ambitious nature of the plot. But I can not countenance this art and the way in which the plot was developed. Sometimes, Mr. Snyder, less is more. Still kudos for not being banal and trite. At least it's original.
February 8, 2017
Seriously, couldn't these Mer creatures deliver a message through I dunno, a courier or something? Why do they have to do these great deal of destruction and damage to the dry lands just to make a point? I know Snyder have explained it in something like "they do this flood deluge thing so that we won't forget where we came from", but yeah, I don't buy their way of giving a message. The Mer could hallucinate their way through our hearts and let the humans find a way peacefully to that twist in the ending of this book.
After a very solid part one, The Wake part two spirals into a convoluted mess of a story, reaching an inevitable action-packed climax and a twist, that though clever at best, severely lacked the confidence to deliver an astonishing end. Scott Snyder asked the readers for too much trust, but delivered an underwhelming and severely preachy finale.
The biggest problem with The Wake I think is that it asks as to sympathize with these deep-sea creatures and for once just be open with what they are trying to say. But I cannot do this, not after . This is the Jar Jar Binks effect: one cannot just like what is built up to be unlikeable in the first place. The other protagonists, The Arm also lacked the motivation to why they are preventing Leewards (the protagonist of part two) on her quest to seek the truth. They technically have nothing to lose if they just let go of her.
I understand that The Wake tries to be philosophical and at times spiritual about humanity. The message never reached me. In fact I just wished that the story delves into a generic Mer vs. humans showdown ala-Independence Day. I would have been more entertained.
That doesn't mean that The Wake is awful. I enjoyed many parts of the graphic novel, especially the first half. Sean Murphy's art perfectly complements Snyder's style of writing. This book is a visual treat from start to finish.
After a very solid part one, The Wake part two spirals into a convoluted mess of a story, reaching an inevitable action-packed climax and a twist, that though clever at best, severely lacked the confidence to deliver an astonishing end. Scott Snyder asked the readers for too much trust, but delivered an underwhelming and severely preachy finale.
The biggest problem with The Wake I think is that it asks as to sympathize with these deep-sea creatures and for once just be open with what they are trying to say. But I cannot do this, not after . This is the Jar Jar Binks effect: one cannot just like what is built up to be unlikeable in the first place. The other protagonists, The Arm also lacked the motivation to why they are preventing Leewards (the protagonist of part two) on her quest to seek the truth. They technically have nothing to lose if they just let go of her.
I understand that The Wake tries to be philosophical and at times spiritual about humanity. The message never reached me. In fact I just wished that the story delves into a generic Mer vs. humans showdown ala-Independence Day. I would have been more entertained.
That doesn't mean that The Wake is awful. I enjoyed many parts of the graphic novel, especially the first half. Sean Murphy's art perfectly complements Snyder's style of writing. This book is a visual treat from start to finish.
June 28, 2020
10 issues broken into two 5 issue parts. Part one, Dr. Lee Archer is recruited by a government agency to go to a base in Alaska to study these strange sounds. Upon arrival she realizes some things were left out. Like working in a secret illegal oil rig at the bottom of the ocean and the fact the they have captured some creature that no one knows what it is. The threat level rises from here and pushes our characters to a terrible demise.
Part 2 picks up 200 years later and the people who exist now are dealing with the fallout that happened at the end of part one. Both stories to me were really good. I really enjoyed issues 1-9. Then the 10th and final issue hits and leaves me confused as hell. Really frustrating. Luckily this doesn’t happen but very rarely as far as enjoying an entire story only to be left empty and lost at the conclusion. I even waited a while and came back to it and re-read issue 10 and flipped back to some teaser stuff and still was lost. So sadly this was a really great idea that was well written with intrigue, suspense and crazy action that had amazing art, that didn’t stick the landing.
Part 2 picks up 200 years later and the people who exist now are dealing with the fallout that happened at the end of part one. Both stories to me were really good. I really enjoyed issues 1-9. Then the 10th and final issue hits and leaves me confused as hell. Really frustrating. Luckily this doesn’t happen but very rarely as far as enjoying an entire story only to be left empty and lost at the conclusion. I even waited a while and came back to it and re-read issue 10 and flipped back to some teaser stuff and still was lost. So sadly this was a really great idea that was well written with intrigue, suspense and crazy action that had amazing art, that didn’t stick the landing.
May 26, 2015
The ending of the book reminds us that it's all an adventure. It doesn't specifically refer to the book itself, but...what an adventure it was. Snyder has sufficiently impressed with American Vampire before, but this is a thoroughly original story and he really spins it. The art is amazing too, but the plot is really star here. Snyder destroys and entire world and then creates an entire world, all with great panache and imagination. And then he throws in seriously horrifying sea creatures, mythology, pirates and, most awesomely, two radically awesome heroines. There is never a dull moment here, it's a genuinely exciting, frightening, interesting, thrilling, fun read. Couple of hours well spent. Highly recommended.
March 9, 2021
(4,3 of 5 for hitting my post-apo/mystery spot with great Sean Murphy and Matt Hollingsworth)
I really like the rough but elegant style of Sean Murphy's art. And (often) accompanied with colours by Matt, there is a sales pitch which is hard for me to resist. On the other hand, there is Scott Snyder. He is a great author and I like many of his works, but sometimes he has tendencies just go too epic and with longer series too lost in his story building.
The Wake luckily came out great. The art is perfect as expected, the story is nice - I love how it's split into two "before and after" parts. The first part is perfect. I love it, even if the ending started to feel a little over-escalated (the common Mer are enough to bring almost Lovecraftian horror, no need to scale, ore even size, it up...). The second part gives us a new start, the first half, maybe two-thirds of it feels really good. Then it slides too heavily to "epic" and "bigger than us" style to my taste. But I still liked the seed idea, I would love to read it in its own story. Here it just feels a little bit rushed. Like if Scott is having an outburst of ideas, but there are two last issues left and he doesn't want to let the ideas go unmentioned. Creating perfect endings, balanced and in harmony with the rest of the story is an art, which could even experience writer like Scott miss.
I really like the rough but elegant style of Sean Murphy's art. And (often) accompanied with colours by Matt, there is a sales pitch which is hard for me to resist. On the other hand, there is Scott Snyder. He is a great author and I like many of his works, but sometimes he has tendencies just go too epic and with longer series too lost in his story building.
The Wake luckily came out great. The art is perfect as expected, the story is nice - I love how it's split into two "before and after" parts. The first part is perfect. I love it, even if the ending started to feel a little over-escalated (the common Mer are enough to bring almost Lovecraftian horror, no need to scale, ore even size, it up...). The second part gives us a new start, the first half, maybe two-thirds of it feels really good. Then it slides too heavily to "epic" and "bigger than us" style to my taste. But I still liked the seed idea, I would love to read it in its own story. Here it just feels a little bit rushed. Like if Scott is having an outburst of ideas, but there are two last issues left and he doesn't want to let the ideas go unmentioned. Creating perfect endings, balanced and in harmony with the rest of the story is an art, which could even experience writer like Scott miss.
August 19, 2015
This started off fantastic but ended up confusing the hell outa me towards the end. The artwork is nice and I love the story itself except for the confusing ending. The end was too rushed. This could have been a few chapters longer and not have one page full of rushed, confusing answers.
I was going to give this 2 stars but raised it to 3 because I loved how unique and creepy the mermaids are. :)
I was going to give this 2 stars but raised it to 3 because I loved how unique and creepy the mermaids are. :)
August 24, 2017
Looking at my Original scores for the single issues this would have been a 4/5 But I can't... that ending was one of the most far fetched, confusing, complicated and let down endings I have read So far in a comic. It Just started off as a Nice horror book But then it got all scifi and complicated as They never really gave a proper explanation for the pirates or the mercs, too much complicated dialogue...
December 6, 2014
3.5 out of 5 stars
Damn really liked this horror book right up to the ending which was um pretty bad a a complete cop out in my opinion. I'd recommend this one for horror and Snyder fans and folks that like weak ends.
Damn really liked this horror book right up to the ending which was um pretty bad a a complete cop out in my opinion. I'd recommend this one for horror and Snyder fans and folks that like weak ends.
August 31, 2017
Arkadaş tavsiyelerini dinlemenin önemi adlı bir öğretide, -evet, uyanış ile alakalı olumsuz tavsiye almıştım- araç olarak kullanılabilir belki. Bunun dışında bir şey ifade etmediği gibi, iyi bir çizgi roman okuması da sunmadı.
December 12, 2016
I am going to keep this review extremely brief because I had to read this graphic novel for school and while I loved the first half of the book I was extremely furious and disappointed with the second half and the pathetic ending. I am sorry I cannot give a proper review because I want to forget that I read this graphic novel and not retain any of the details because I felt like I sincerely wasted my time on this epic failure. I read this months ago and yet I did not want to write a review for this reason. I found this wonderful review that explains my anger and frustration and you should check out Sam Quixote's review.
True Rating: 3.5 Stars
Part One: 5 Stars
Part Two: 2 Stars
What I loved about the first part of the story was it felt like I was watching a horror film being developed in front of me and based on the direction the story was heading I thought the second part of the novel was either going to be a continuation of the first half or different characters dealing with the results of this altercation. Instead in the second half it felt like a major departure from the horror genre and went more into Sci-Fi and Philosophy which made no sense at all and I believe in the end Scott Snyder either had no clue how to properly end the story or did not do a great job at illustrating the main idea. I wanted the mer people to be monsters defending what is clearly their underwater world instead of making it a reflection of the human race. I was angry and confused after reading this graphic novel and I am glad I had to read it for school. If I had wasted my own money for personal entertainment I would have written a very long rant of a review. The illustration is spectacular and I am sad that it was wasted on this junk which is partly why I could not rate it 3 stars because the artwork is what elevates the narrative. This is where I will end it for now and I hope I will never read this book again in my lifetime.
True Rating: 3.5 Stars
Part One: 5 Stars
Part Two: 2 Stars
What I loved about the first part of the story was it felt like I was watching a horror film being developed in front of me and based on the direction the story was heading I thought the second part of the novel was either going to be a continuation of the first half or different characters dealing with the results of this altercation. Instead in the second half it felt like a major departure from the horror genre and went more into Sci-Fi and Philosophy which made no sense at all and I believe in the end Scott Snyder either had no clue how to properly end the story or did not do a great job at illustrating the main idea. I wanted the mer people to be monsters defending what is clearly their underwater world instead of making it a reflection of the human race. I was angry and confused after reading this graphic novel and I am glad I had to read it for school. If I had wasted my own money for personal entertainment I would have written a very long rant of a review. The illustration is spectacular and I am sad that it was wasted on this junk which is partly why I could not rate it 3 stars because the artwork is what elevates the narrative. This is where I will end it for now and I hope I will never read this book again in my lifetime.
January 16, 2015
I have become a huge Scott Snyder fan. His work on American Vampire has filled the emptiness in graphic novel horror stories that was left over by end of 30 days of Night. So it was some fanboy eagerness that I picked up the graphic novel collection of The Wake which compiles issues #1-10.
Marine Biologist Lee Archer is offered an opportunity to study a new threat at the deepest depths of the Artic Circle. At the bottom of the ocean, aboard a ghost rig, a creature is captured. A mer-man. But Archer and her team learned that there is far more to this creature than was realized and more so, he is not the only one. Soon they are fighting for their lives but it is not only their lives the creatures are after, but the world itself.
Two hundred years later the face of the Earth has changed. The oceans have risen and the attacks of the war like creatures of the seas have destroyed the governments and the civilizations of the surface. Leeward is a hunter and scavenger of the ocean, trading the skulls and bodies of the sea creatures for relics of the past. One of which is a transmitter and as she listens one day she hears a distress call. From a Biologist named Lee Archer. Someone who should have died two hundred years ago. Now Leeward must escape the little government that is left and pirates to hunt down the origin of the signal.
Scott Snyder's Wake is far more than a science fiction horror tale. While it borrows shamelessly from some, it also wraps itself in the trappings of mythology and the never ending fear of the unknown. While I will agree with some who found the ending confusing, you cannot argue the storytelling and absolutely brilliant artwork that fits this comic so well.
The Wake is massive in scope and does not disappoint in delivery.
A fun book to read and enjoy.
Marine Biologist Lee Archer is offered an opportunity to study a new threat at the deepest depths of the Artic Circle. At the bottom of the ocean, aboard a ghost rig, a creature is captured. A mer-man. But Archer and her team learned that there is far more to this creature than was realized and more so, he is not the only one. Soon they are fighting for their lives but it is not only their lives the creatures are after, but the world itself.
Two hundred years later the face of the Earth has changed. The oceans have risen and the attacks of the war like creatures of the seas have destroyed the governments and the civilizations of the surface. Leeward is a hunter and scavenger of the ocean, trading the skulls and bodies of the sea creatures for relics of the past. One of which is a transmitter and as she listens one day she hears a distress call. From a Biologist named Lee Archer. Someone who should have died two hundred years ago. Now Leeward must escape the little government that is left and pirates to hunt down the origin of the signal.
Scott Snyder's Wake is far more than a science fiction horror tale. While it borrows shamelessly from some, it also wraps itself in the trappings of mythology and the never ending fear of the unknown. While I will agree with some who found the ending confusing, you cannot argue the storytelling and absolutely brilliant artwork that fits this comic so well.
The Wake is massive in scope and does not disappoint in delivery.
A fun book to read and enjoy.
December 12, 2017
I read this because it sounded like it was going to be some badass, underwater, science fiction, survivors in a sardine can, horror story. And it did start out that way. After the first few issues, I'm thinking to myself, man I love Leviathan. This is gonna be like Leviathan, but in comicbook form. Then all of a sudden it wasn't. It wasn't that at all. The rug was pulled out from under me. The shift was abrupt and jarring. It took all I had to keep reading. But okay, fine, Waterworld isn't nearly as awesome as Leviathan, but sure, I'll go along with it. Then again, boom, another stupid slap in face called the ending. What I found most annoying about the ending was that I get it was supposed to be some deep, philosophical, emotionally resonant, reveal about humanity and life...but it fell so flat and was so convoluted you just didn't care. They just weren't able to pull it off and instead it comes across as stupid and pretentious. If the first part of this story had been expanded and fleshed out more and that was it, that was the whole story, it coulda been a great little horror tale. Or if they tried to mesh the two stories together in a complimentary way instead of separating them so sharply, having them converge at the end, maybe I wouldn't have felt so betrayed. Either way, the art's great. Read it for that if you want, but be prepared to be annoyed and let down when you do.
September 1, 2017
The setup is strong, but then The Wake covers way too much ground far too quickly. Each half of the series has its own world building and exposition, which made an otherwise good story a little tedious.
April 4, 2016
This story started awesome and then turned weird. And not the good kind of weird with like, I don't know, aliens that look like huge ballsacks. Weird where you kind of don't know what's going on, and kind of don't care. I found myself reading the ending, knowing that I didn't really understand what was happening, but also not giving a hot damn. You could just feel it was one of those endings that's like, "Look, I wrote myself into a bit of a corner, but it's the journey, not the destination, right?"
Well, no. It's both. I love a good journey, but when you set up a mysterious journey with lots of emphasis put on how cool it's going to be when we fulfill the ancient prophecy or whatever, then yeah, there's an element of destination there too.
Also, this is the second Snyder story (the first being Batman: Court of Owls) that relies on characters basically tripping balls all the time, which I do not care for. There's just a part of my brain that doesn't respond to hallucinating alongside a character. Because they're hallucinating, I'm sober as hell. It feels like when you drive a carful of drunk people home. They're having a great time, laughing and having these deep conversations, and you're just like, "I wonder if I let go of the wheel and hit the gas what fate would have in store..."
Maybe these books need to have a little tape that goes with, and the tape narrates the book and makes noises when you turn the pages, and also a noise when you should ingest hallucinogenic mushrooms in order to experience this better. Or at least signal that you should read this next part when you're altered in some way, maybe you set an alarm to 4 AM and wake up and read these pages, then go back to sleep and have to wonder if what you read was real.
Well, no. It's both. I love a good journey, but when you set up a mysterious journey with lots of emphasis put on how cool it's going to be when we fulfill the ancient prophecy or whatever, then yeah, there's an element of destination there too.
Also, this is the second Snyder story (the first being Batman: Court of Owls) that relies on characters basically tripping balls all the time, which I do not care for. There's just a part of my brain that doesn't respond to hallucinating alongside a character. Because they're hallucinating, I'm sober as hell. It feels like when you drive a carful of drunk people home. They're having a great time, laughing and having these deep conversations, and you're just like, "I wonder if I let go of the wheel and hit the gas what fate would have in store..."
Maybe these books need to have a little tape that goes with, and the tape narrates the book and makes noises when you turn the pages, and also a noise when you should ingest hallucinogenic mushrooms in order to experience this better. Or at least signal that you should read this next part when you're altered in some way, maybe you set an alarm to 4 AM and wake up and read these pages, then go back to sleep and have to wonder if what you read was real.
February 24, 2022
10 sayıdan oluşan ve son iki sayıya kadar oldukça güzel devam eden bir Scott Snyder hikayesi. Sean Murphy çizimleri gerçekten harika, zaman zaman okumayı bırakıp sahneleri izlemeye dalıyor. Bazı paneller alıştığımızdan farklı kullanılmış, iki sayfaya yayılmış. ilk başta hafif bir afallamaya neden olsa da hızlıca alışıyorsunuz bu anlatım üslubuna ve bu kararla ulaşılan çok geniş panoramik çizimler öyküyü çok zenginleştiriyor.
Kitap felaket öncesi e sonrası olmak üzere ikiye ayrılıyor ve her iki bölüm hikayeye uyumlu bir ritme, giderek de yükselen tempoya sahip. Ancak son iki sayıda işler bozulmaya başlıyor. Hikayenin sonunda karakterler tuhaf, kendi gelişimlerine aykırı hareketlerde bulunuyorlar. Kraldan çok kralcı olan general bir anda kızı olduğunu hatırlıyor, açıklamalar garipleşiyor. Hikayenin sonu kurgusal olarak değil ama uygulamada o kadar tuhaf(hatta gülünç) şekilde bağlanıyor ki "hala aynı kitabı mı okuyorum ya ben" diye kapağı kontrol etme ihtiyacı hissettiriyor. Zira maalesef "crying to forget" muhabbeti benim gözümü yaşartamıyor.
Çok sert girişmek istemiyorum, zira hikayelerde gidilen yolun önemli olduğunu, sonucun tek belirleyici faktör olmadığına inanmak istiyorum. Dört dörtlük bir çizgi roman olmayı son iki sayısında alınan kararlarla kaçırması yine de üzüyor beni.
Kitap felaket öncesi e sonrası olmak üzere ikiye ayrılıyor ve her iki bölüm hikayeye uyumlu bir ritme, giderek de yükselen tempoya sahip. Ancak son iki sayıda işler bozulmaya başlıyor. Hikayenin sonunda karakterler tuhaf, kendi gelişimlerine aykırı hareketlerde bulunuyorlar. Kraldan çok kralcı olan general bir anda kızı olduğunu hatırlıyor, açıklamalar garipleşiyor. Hikayenin sonu kurgusal olarak değil ama uygulamada o kadar tuhaf(hatta gülünç) şekilde bağlanıyor ki "hala aynı kitabı mı okuyorum ya ben" diye kapağı kontrol etme ihtiyacı hissettiriyor. Zira maalesef "crying to forget" muhabbeti benim gözümü yaşartamıyor.
Çok sert girişmek istemiyorum, zira hikayelerde gidilen yolun önemli olduğunu, sonucun tek belirleyici faktör olmadığına inanmak istiyorum. Dört dörtlük bir çizgi roman olmayı son iki sayısında alınan kararlarla kaçırması yine de üzüyor beni.
November 25, 2014
I was not sure what to expect and I got nicely surprised. All along the story things happen that are unexpected and it's hard to see where Scott Snyder wants to take us but in the end the ride is well worth it. You just have to let yourself be carried away and be ready for a few crazy things.( I did not see the end coming at all).
The art is good and it's nice to see Sean Murphy paired again with Scott Snyder after their previous American Vampire Survival of the Fittest collaboration.
One comment : The story is classified as survival horror but that is only true for the first half in my view...
The art is good and it's nice to see Sean Murphy paired again with Scott Snyder after their previous American Vampire Survival of the Fittest collaboration.
One comment : The story is classified as survival horror but that is only true for the first half in my view...
January 7, 2015
I read this because I saw it on a number of end-of-year best-of lists. How it got there, I have no idea. Imagine the worst parts of The Abyss, Waterworld, and Chariots of the Gods combined into a single soggy sci-fi mess. Sprinkle on Top Cow's Fathom and you have a clear front-runner for the worst comic I've read this year. The ideas in this comic were so dumb that I'm trying to forget them, and doing that just makes me remember them harder, and it makes me so mad. DO NOT READ THIS
March 8, 2015
Okay like WHAT? In the beginning I was all like hell yes!!! The middle I was like hmmmm I need help figuring this shit out. The ending... ????
My brain hurts.
However the beginning was amazing. The artwork was amazing. So 3 stars.
My brain hurts.
However the beginning was amazing. The artwork was amazing. So 3 stars.
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