Pourchassée par un dangereux psychopathe doté des mêmes pouvoirs qu'elle, Julie fuit à travers le désert. Semant les morts involontaires sur son passage, elle cherche à percer les mystères qui entourent sa combinaison et à établir un lien entre le Projet Phi, les visions prophétiques de sa soeur et l'agent gouvernemental qui la traque pour son propre bien... Sélectionné aux Eisner Awards 2010.
Following the examples of independent comic creators such as Dave Sim and Jeff Smith, he decided to publish Strangers in Paradise himself through his own Houston-based "Abstract Studios" imprint, and has frequently mentioned a desire to do a syndicated cartoon strip in the authors notes at the back of the Strangers in Paradise collection books. He has also mentioned his greatest career influence is Peanuts' Charles Schulz.[1] Some of Moore's strip work can additionally be found in his Paradise, Too! publications.
His work has won him recognition in the comics industry, including receiving the Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story in 1996 for Strangers in Paradise #1-8, which was collected in the trade paperback "I Dream of You".
It was announced on June 15th, 2007 that Moore would be taking over for Sean McKeever as writer of Marvel Comics's Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane series starting with a new issue #1. On July 27th, Marvel announced that Moore would also take over for Joss Whedon as writer of Marvel's Runaways.[2]
On November 19th, 2007 Terry Moore announced in his blog that his new self-published series would be named Echo and its first issue would appear on March 5th, 2008.[3]
Echo is back for Volume 3 . . . but it was not everything I was hoping for . . .
I was not quite as impressed with this volume as I was with the earlier volumes. The story felt a bit disjointed and bumpy. I can best describe it that it felt like Moore was trying to get a lot of places at once in a short period of time. It was just not quite the organic flow I am used to from him.
Despite any lack of any of the same enthusiasm that I had for earlier volumes, the art continues to be great. It’s classic Terry Moore – and that is nothing to complain about!
Every few volumes there is a blip, so I will just take this volume as a slight bump in the road. I will definitely be back for volume 4 and hoping for the best!
A lot of interesting stuff coming together in this issue [but still so so many questions left to answer!]. I wonder if there is going to be a supernatural element brought in and . Can't wait to see what happens next!
The running away turns into running toward as all the characters finally converge for a big confrontation. It's all very exciting, even if the timeline of events seems a little wonky.
I'd say this is all a little drawn out, but the individual volumes read so quickly I just want to keep zipping through them. I imagine though this must have been frustrating to read as individual comics with long waits between them.
FOR REFERENCE:
Contains material originally published in single magazine form as Echo #11-15.
Moore tries to play with plot structure in this book, jumping past a few cliffhangers, then back-filling them. Unfortunately, it serves to muddy the story and lessen the impact of some pretty big events.
Despite that, this is a good middle book that feels like it really draws the lines, reveals the mysteries, and pushes the story forward.
This is still an exceptional series, with the mystery surrounding the full potential of the suit and what HeNRI's actual goals really ramping up in this volume. Julie, Dillon and Ivy prove to be even fuller, more well-drawn characters, and we start to get a little more of a sense in particularly of Ivy and her motivations. It's nice to have a character occupying such a gray area without seeming to compromise her morals or ideals. She's just a calculating person doing her job, trying to make things work. She could've been very one note, kind of a plot hammer more than a character, but Moore has rounded her out very well, and now I even care about her.
That said, the villains we see at HeNRI haven't quite gotten the same treatment yet. The bad guys seem very mustache-twirly in this volume, and I'm hoping we get some more reveals about their motivations and/or fears, because otherwise they could wind up a little one dimensional. I'm not positive at this point that they are fully evil, but in this book they aren't given much to do besides seem that way.
No matter what, even with a small hangup like that, I'm still loving this series and where Moore seems to be leading it. He's swiftly becoming one of my favorite comics artists.
Wow, the last one ended on a high and this one keeps up the tempo beautifully.
Who is on the right side? Who isn't? The ppl lot is getting twisted, and Julie's alloy is starting to show its full powers. What happened to Annie? Why? Who caused it?
Terry Moore raises a lot of questions in this one and the suspense is totally killing me. I'm eagerly looking forward to reading more from him, and also wondering what happens next in the series.
The homeless guy is a religious zealot who has it in his head to punish Julie for a reason only he knows. He overpowers her and tries to get her part of the alloy, but is rejected by a large blast. Dillon also confronts her, scared of her abilities, and gets gravely injured. She heals him with a hug. They both experience visions of Annie, so Julie decides that the answer is in the facility where the alloy was developed, called HeNRI.
Ivy is following the traces of their blasts. She deduces that Annie's DNA is in the alloy. She gets a call that her daughter is in hospital, so she puts the job on hold. Tests on Julie's toothbrush come in from the lab and her cancer markers are gone. Ivy hopes that the alloy can heal her daughter too.
At HeNRI a gun is developed to turn the alloy into a harmless liquid. It also kills the wearer, but the boss of the institute doesn't care. The employees that monitor Julie's house find that she and Dillon have returned home. Ivy gets there first and convinces Julie that the alloy has healing properties. Julie, Dillon and Julie's sister Pam escape in Ivy's car when HeNRI's boss arrives in a helicopter and blows up Julie's house.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I'm loving this series, but I am starting to notice some bumps in otherwise amazingly crafted comic - the bad guys are all far more one dimensional than the good guys. While our heros get to have flaws and personality, the antagonists are all a bit flat in comparison with no real redeeming qualities. They're bad because they're greedy, and they're greedy because they're bad. This is such an amazing book otherwise, that I'm hopeful Moore will flesh out his baddies in future volumes.
In between flashbacks and action squences we get some more info on what happened in the past with a few on the main players and the bad guys continue to be bad with minimal character development. Everyone else feels more fleshed out at this point. You can tell Terry Moore is having fun maneuvering his pieces around the board as we near the halfway mark in the series. Its Sci-Fi greatness and Moore does a great job balancing his fiction and science for the most part. Great fun so far!
The good: -Some answers about the suit and Annie's work. -The relation between the protagonist's thickens. -The character of the investigator gets better and better.
The bad: -The villains are unidimensional. -The plot doesn't moves forward a lot. -The revelations were things that you suspected. -I think Terry Moore is just making his characters go round and round because he doesn't wants to end the story, but this could ended in second volume.
Con questo terzo volume, Echo arriva a metà del suo cammino.
Dopo lo scontro nel deserto tra Julie e Cain, Dillon è comprensibilmente sconvolto per i poteri mostrati dai due. E quando tenta di strattonare Julie per ottenere delle risposte, non fidandosi più di lei e ritenendola anzi complice nella morte di Annie, il metallo della tuta reagisce stordendolo e quasi uccidendolo. Sarebbe contento di terminare l’opera Cain, che ha raggiunto praticamente illeso i due, ma Julie reagisce di nuovo. O meglio, reagisce la sua tuta… una grandissima esplosione, altro metallo che si aggiunge sul suo corpo (con conseguenti problemi logistici che andrà poi a esporre).
Per fortuna Dillon si sveglia, e i due vengono contattati da Ivy che li informa della presenza del dna di Annie nella tuta. Il che spiegherebbe anche il perché a volte Annie si sovrappone a Julie. L’agente però abbandona la caccia (più che caccia, opera di convincimento psicologico dato che ha giustamente paura dei poteri di Julie e si tiene a debita distanza) quando riceve notizia che la propria figlia si è presa la meningite. E’ stata salvata, ma rimarrà sorda… la donna prende una decisione importantissima quando la avvisano che le analisi fatte sul dna di Julie prima e dopo l’esplosione mostra delle grosse anomalie: a parte che adesso la donna dispone di due corredi di dna allo stesso tempo -impossibile ma vero-, mentre prima aveva una predisposizione al cancro, ora questa è scomparsa. E lei è più sana di quanto non sia mai stata in vita sua.
E’ questo a fare scattare la molla.
Annie è stata uccisa perché voleva far spostare fondi dall’uso bellico del metallo all’uso biologico e medico. Ora il capo del progetto vuole eliminare ogni prova, per motivi suoi, e ha assoldato anche uno scienziato coreano che sembra essere riuscito a trovare il modo di distruggere il metallo. Ospite umano compreso. Will è contrario, ma non ha voce in capitolo. E Will è la persona che Annie ha detto dovrà essere contattata da Dillone Julie, se vogliono salvare il mondo. E loro stessi. E magari vendicarne la morte, già che ci siamo.
E a tutto questo aggiungiamo una Pam fuggita dal centro di cura, e in grossa crisi? Ma si, aggiungiamola!
La storia continua a piacermi, anche se questo volume è sembrato durare meno degli altri, purtroppo.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
If you thought the second volume of this series was great, get ready for volume three. This volume sees many of the characters get further fleshed out & more questions are posed, some of which have tentative answers but no solid ones.
Picking up where the previous volume left off, Desert Run finds Julie & Dillon on the run- not only from HeNRI but also from Ivy. Ivy claims to have Julie's best interests at heart, but can they really trust her? And is she telling the truth about some of the suit's properties? Is the suit's creator Annie really part of Julie & the suit? And what of the other things about the suit? More importantly- if the suit grows bigger, can Julie go to the bathroom?
Ok, I'll admit it. I'm hooked. This series has a mound of possibilities to it. I like how the characters interact & I'm curious to see what the full back stories are on many of the characters- ESPECIALLY the homeless guy. (No spoilers about him, but I will say that he's more interesting than I thought he was!)
I'm also intrigued about what the potentials are for the suit & I'm beginning to notice certain things- like when the mystery voiceover starts, Julie's eyes apparently change color. Things like that are the little reasons I love to read & re-read Moore's stuff- there's so much that you can miss out on the first time you go through the books.
Needless to say, this is shaping up to be quite an interesting turn of events in this volume. New enemies are introduced & plot points start to come together. I admit it- I'm going to be waiting with baited breath for the next volume to come out!
After a cliff hanger ending in the last volume, this one has an incredible opening sequence where we see the full effects that the suit can have on a person as an unfortunate traveler, in the wrong place at the wrong time, gets blown to bits. The art work for the sequence is incredible.
I liked how the story cuts around, so sometimes you jump to the story line of a different character without knowing the fate of the one you just left. This must've been particularly effective if you were reading these issue by issue. However, we're always shown the missing chunks in flashback the next time we rejoin the previous character so it's never unsatisfying, just sometimes slightly non-linear.
Julie's box is incredibly intriguing. It's mentioned in the story quite early on, and comes up a couple of times in this volume. It's probably the main reason I was spurred on read Echo sooner, rather than later, because it crops up in Rachel Rising. I really want to know what's in it, why Ivy found it so interesting, and why it makes Rick think Julie is a pervert. And, of course, why (original) 'Rachel' (whatever she was called, I don't think we've learned that yet) has a box that looks like Julie's box (or is, perhaps, the same box) and whether the contents are the same. I wonder if that'll ever be answered?
There's lots of action in this one, as well as some more exposition, and an explosive finish. This volume really takes you into the exciting middle section of the story. No stopping me now, I'm reading these all straight through!
The scientists (and corporate and military entities) working on the project in which the alloy was created want it back – badly. And they don’t care if they have to kill Julie to get it. Annie, the creator of the alloy, was killed when the same scientists shot her out of the sky. Somehow her DNA has become fused with the alloy and now with Julie’s. Annie’s boyfriend, Dillon, has a vision where Annie tells him to help Julie find Will, who presumably can help Julie understand what’s going on and protect her from the forces conspiring against her. The scientists, meanwhile, have developed a weapon that can destroy the properties of the alloy and they’re hunting Julie.
This installment was full of action and explosions as Julie and Dillon race to reach Will. They find an unexpected ally in Ivy – who works for the bad guys – when Ivy learns that the alloy has healing properties that may help her sick child. Julie and Dillon are joined by Julie’s mentally ill sister, as they make their escape out of the burning inferno that was once Julie’s home. Fast-paced, exciting series! Can’t wait to find out what happens next!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Be warned this review might have some light spoilers....
First thing I missed about this book was the connection between the quotes at the beginning of the chapters, this time all the quotes were by different people.
I still liked this book, but somehow it lost something. I no longer feel like I'm witnessing a superhero being born, it now feels like a police chase gone bad, where the line between the good guys and the bad guys gets more blurred, and at the same time more defined.
This is Ivy's book, it makes us root for her, and I kept wishing that Julie and Dillon would hear her (not really go with her, until the last chapter of the book)...
This series has only gotten better with each volume. Every time I feel like I know where it's going it throws a little curve ball at me. It's not like it's a hard left that changes the whole focus of the story. It's just enough that you really don't know what to expect next. I love how the scientist, Liu, boasts about the power the gun he's invented only to later have it blow up in his face. While Moore's layouts are pretty standard, his ability to give each character unique features using a clean and simple style is amazing especially because this series is in black and white.
The cast expands even more. We're getting into blurrier and blurrier space. What happened and who all is it happening, too. It's not just our main cast, but as our main cast starts to blur who the main character is (and isn't and maybe IS all at once) we begin to need more background.
More characters join the main cast. And there are moments that get me teary-eyed. Which is not unexpected with Terry Moore. The people shine through who they are and what they do, making these two things are simple as garment we wear as we get closer and closer to what is truly the most important of things.
Julie and Dillon continue to flee from Cain, the madman with the silver hand, and HeNRI, the shady agency that murdered the first wearer of the Beta suit. Ivy tracks Julie down but is suspicious of her employer's intentions. Annie speaks to Dillon, sending him on a vague save-the-world quest.
Good, good, and more good. The plot moves, the story continues to display strong internal logic, Moore's drawings are still wonderful. I keep waiting for Echo to stumble but it just keeps going strong.
The story is moving further along here. It's still very interesting--I didn't know what was coming, and what did happen seemed totally believable and interesting. Julie's pursuers are becoming clearer and more complex, even a bit creepier in one case. She doesn't develop too much more as a character here, but that's good because it keeps the story activity from being overwhelming while everything else around her explodes.
Some questions are answered, while more (many more) are posed in this third volume. Ivy is actually turning into an interesting character, a much more complex one, and that really is a good thing. And Pam... I still don't know what they plan to do with Pam, but I quite like her character so far. Dillon, though, is slowly losing it... both in terms of character and of story. Here's hoping he gets better.
Loved the first 2, so gotta love this one. It just gets better each time. I am so happy! I've put in a request to my library to get 4 and 5 as they don't have them, and I need to know how this works out. One of the best graphic novels I've read in awhile, and it doesn't involve a superhero in tights. Yet she's super! Give me the metal...
The story ratchets up the mysteries and tension as the pursuit goes on. The story is getting more interesting as details filter in - details of Annie's life, of the motives of the homeless dude, and of Dillon & Julie's personalities.
I never could get into Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise, but I have been really enjoying Echo. I would categorize it as modern day sci-fi, top secret shit gone awry with normal folks with their own problems enough as it is stuck in the middle of it. I am excited to read more as it comes out.
Considering how much I didn’t like Strangers in Paradise, I love Echo. It’s really interesting, the artwork’s different, the story really catching me. I think I’m essentially caught up now and can go on subscription, but we’ll see.
Julie and Dillon are on the run, pursued by mercenaries, the law, and a homicidal maniac who is also covered in the same mysterious alloy that Julie is. They know that the alloy is dangerous, but how dangerous they never guessed...
Story keeps on getting better but the ending is in sight. We're starting to get more answers about the science behind this technology. This volume starts in on some of the more pertinent social & political commentary regarding our use of atomics, military, humanity.