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Fearscape #1
Fearscape #1
The Fearscape is a world beyond our own, populated by manifestations of our worst fears. Once per generation, The Muse travels to Earth, discovers our greatest Storyteller, and takes them with her to the Fearscape to battle these fear-creatures on our behalf. All has been well for eons, until The Muse encounters Henry Henry—a plagiarist with delusions of literary grandeur. Mistaking him for our greatest Storyteller, she ushers him into the Fearscape. Doom follows.
27 pages, Unknown Binding
Published September 26, 2018
3 people are currently reading
28 people want to read
About the author
Ryan O'Sullivan
54 books35 followersRyan O'Sullivan is a comic book writer from the North of England. Best known for original works such as A Dark Interlude, Fearscape, Void Trip, and Turncoat; Ryan has also written for licensed properties such as Dark Souls, Warhammer 40,000, and The Evil Within; as well as music industry professionals such as RZA of the Wutang Clan, Yungblud, and Abbey Road Studios. His original graphic novel, Fearscape, was one of only two comics selected for The Guardian newspaper's "Best Books of the Year 2019". He is one quarter of the White Noise comic-writer studio.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 21, 2023
I can't make much sense of this.
From the very beginning, the main character Henry Henry voices his fondness for things that are new and original, tales never told before, toys and tropes unexplored. He decries the use of cliches, and all the fantasy genre fiction and other such old nonsense. That's all a perfectly reasonable stance to take, a cause to fight for as any other... but then the narrative also goes to great lengths to portray him as uttely unsympathetic: he's self-centered, supercilious, condescending, and downright delusional. He performs various criminal acts that the story does not try to justify - it outright defies the notion that there could be justification, Henry himself rejecting the thought. He even gets a few punches thrown at the reader! He also does a pretty poor showing at his own argument for new and fresh things, giving the reader not only the reason to disagree, but also the means. All in all it's like the narrative was pushing us to the opposite camp - that of the (apparently) trite and predictable genre novelist, Arthur Proctor.
So what's up with Arthur, then? He and his works represent everything Henry hates, and is apparently named as the greatest storyteller of our time, the Muse herself recruiting him (or trying to) to do battle against the nightmares of mankind. But there's not a whole lot of such impression that the story itself gives us: it's all in Henry's point of view, after all. The little objective context we get of his writing, the genre and the names of his stories, is not enough to paint him in such a stellar light as the narrative should show him. And then of course we later on learn that he too is kind of an ass, guilty of things worse than most things Henry ever does on-screen, unrepentant and unlikeable.
About the only character I actually liked - the only character the narrative was painting a good picture of - was Arthur's daughter, Jill. She seems nice, tries to do the right thing, proactive more often than not, not taking it lying down when weird things rear their ugly head. Taking care of the Muse. She's the closest thing we have to a hero, yet she's also relegated to a side role and doesn't get much spotlight at all until towards the end.
The Fearscape itself is pretty great. It and its inhabitants are well-realized, and the artwork is good and fits with what the story's going for. But it has a similar issue with the characters in the world of the living: I quite soon have very little idea of who the villain is, what the Muse wanted Arthur to do, what the function of the land is, and what manner of an objective higher-up message it gives about the rules of fiction and narrative within the context of this setting.
I mean, for everything bad I have to say, the story is well written. The writer, Ryan O'Sullivan, is competent and has a good sense of what he's doing, and seems to be hitting all the correct notes and portraying everything as it should be in his head. I just have very little idea of just what lies in his head: what it is he's trying to do, what kind of an impression he's trying to portray, or who the hero is.
Am I one of those philistine "casual readers" Henry decries for not getting it? Is it a good or a bad thing for being one, given what Henry himself is like? What message is the story trying to convey to the reader? What camp does it want us to belong? Should it be taken as an objective statement that well-tried fantasy genre fiction is the best kind of fiction there ever is - and if not, then what is the Muse going on about, and how does the world of fantasy actually work?
Going by the five issues I've read so far, I have no idea what's going on. But I'm suitably bothered by it that I think I will keep on reading for a while longer, see whether things will make sense by the end of it. The quality of the writing itself gives me some hope. We'll see.
From the very beginning, the main character Henry Henry voices his fondness for things that are new and original, tales never told before, toys and tropes unexplored. He decries the use of cliches, and all the fantasy genre fiction and other such old nonsense. That's all a perfectly reasonable stance to take, a cause to fight for as any other... but then the narrative also goes to great lengths to portray him as uttely unsympathetic: he's self-centered, supercilious, condescending, and downright delusional. He performs various criminal acts that the story does not try to justify - it outright defies the notion that there could be justification, Henry himself rejecting the thought. He even gets a few punches thrown at the reader! He also does a pretty poor showing at his own argument for new and fresh things, giving the reader not only the reason to disagree, but also the means. All in all it's like the narrative was pushing us to the opposite camp - that of the (apparently) trite and predictable genre novelist, Arthur Proctor.
So what's up with Arthur, then? He and his works represent everything Henry hates, and is apparently named as the greatest storyteller of our time, the Muse herself recruiting him (or trying to) to do battle against the nightmares of mankind. But there's not a whole lot of such impression that the story itself gives us: it's all in Henry's point of view, after all. The little objective context we get of his writing, the genre and the names of his stories, is not enough to paint him in such a stellar light as the narrative should show him. And then of course we later on learn that he too is kind of an ass, guilty of things worse than most things Henry ever does on-screen, unrepentant and unlikeable.
About the only character I actually liked - the only character the narrative was painting a good picture of - was Arthur's daughter, Jill. She seems nice, tries to do the right thing, proactive more often than not, not taking it lying down when weird things rear their ugly head. Taking care of the Muse. She's the closest thing we have to a hero, yet she's also relegated to a side role and doesn't get much spotlight at all until towards the end.
The Fearscape itself is pretty great. It and its inhabitants are well-realized, and the artwork is good and fits with what the story's going for. But it has a similar issue with the characters in the world of the living: I quite soon have very little idea of who the villain is, what the Muse wanted Arthur to do, what the function of the land is, and what manner of an objective higher-up message it gives about the rules of fiction and narrative within the context of this setting.
I mean, for everything bad I have to say, the story is well written. The writer, Ryan O'Sullivan, is competent and has a good sense of what he's doing, and seems to be hitting all the correct notes and portraying everything as it should be in his head. I just have very little idea of just what lies in his head: what it is he's trying to do, what kind of an impression he's trying to portray, or who the hero is.
Am I one of those philistine "casual readers" Henry decries for not getting it? Is it a good or a bad thing for being one, given what Henry himself is like? What message is the story trying to convey to the reader? What camp does it want us to belong? Should it be taken as an objective statement that well-tried fantasy genre fiction is the best kind of fiction there ever is - and if not, then what is the Muse going on about, and how does the world of fantasy actually work?
Going by the five issues I've read so far, I have no idea what's going on. But I'm suitably bothered by it that I think I will keep on reading for a while longer, see whether things will make sense by the end of it. The quality of the writing itself gives me some hope. We'll see.
November 21, 2021
It is trying to hard to be edgy, tbh.
November 12, 2018
My review was first posted on Northern Plunder, you can read more of my reviews there too.
Now if you’re thinking that Ryan O’Sullivan sounds familar to my blog then you’re correct – I read his graphic novel Void Trip earlier this year which was amazing.
So when I saw him asking if anyone wanted a PDF to review of Fearscape #1 I was like YUP! Sign me up!
Fearscape follows Henry Henry whos narrative on life is blissfully ignorant and he very much lives in his own world happily trodding along as a plagiarist.
One evening, The Muse mistakes him for a legendary author and enlists him to enter the Fearscape to defeat fear-creatures with his storytelling prowess.
I really loved the design of The Muse and the possibilites that we could have with Henry in the Fearscape. These combined with the great writing I really can’t wait to read the rest – will this be the first ever comic series I purchase?
His narrative voice is very entertaining to read though and he sure knows how to tell a story.
Now if you’re thinking that Ryan O’Sullivan sounds familar to my blog then you’re correct – I read his graphic novel Void Trip earlier this year which was amazing.
So when I saw him asking if anyone wanted a PDF to review of Fearscape #1 I was like YUP! Sign me up!
Fearscape follows Henry Henry whos narrative on life is blissfully ignorant and he very much lives in his own world happily trodding along as a plagiarist.
One evening, The Muse mistakes him for a legendary author and enlists him to enter the Fearscape to defeat fear-creatures with his storytelling prowess.
I really loved the design of The Muse and the possibilites that we could have with Henry in the Fearscape. These combined with the great writing I really can’t wait to read the rest – will this be the first ever comic series I purchase?
His narrative voice is very entertaining to read though and he sure knows how to tell a story.
July 29, 2020
Not sure what to make of the book. The main character is so delusional and constantly bending events to make himself seem like the hero of the story, that I would have liked it better, if Henry Henry was not set in a world of literature but in a business setting and his name would have been Johnny Johnny, an on-the-nose reminder of the orange clown‘s middle name. Many ideas are intriguing (for example the fearscape where humanitys greatest, and smallest, fears are living), however with a lack of depth and nuance (we only meet the plague, the first and the greatest fear). Also, the interactions between the characters are ripe with potential (author and muse, personification of fear and hero), but they mostly fall flat.
January 3, 2020
Too pretentious for my taste. Throwing a lot of nice ideas around but doesnt really follow through with any of them.
May 28, 2021
péssimo horrível tenebroso espero que ele engasgue
January 3, 2022
The writing style is not my favourite but the story is quite interesting.
December 4, 2022
péssimo terrível tenebroso
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November 22, 2021I loved the sarcastic, quippy, fourth-wall breaking narrative of this comic. Seriously, I was not expecting it to be so amusing, haha. So many good one liners!
This first comic follows Henry Henry, a translator/writer after he steals a manuscript from another author. He's subsequently mistaken for the author by a being who appears before him, the Muse. Henry Henry's consequently brought into the 'Fearscape', a place where writers selected by the Muse battle fears in order to make them less frightening. That's, like, such a cool idea? Very intrigued to see where it'll go!
This first comic follows Henry Henry, a translator/writer after he steals a manuscript from another author. He's subsequently mistaken for the author by a being who appears before him, the Muse. Henry Henry's consequently brought into the 'Fearscape', a place where writers selected by the Muse battle fears in order to make them less frightening. That's, like, such a cool idea? Very intrigued to see where it'll go!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews