Footprints #3 Review

Bigfoot is on the trail of Motheresa and uncovers a traitor in his midst.

Footprints #3

Shortly after meeting Motheresa, Yeti and Bigfoot joins forces with her.  With the help of Chupacabra, they find Doc Weber performing his tests on Jersey Devil.  They each decide to sign up and allow him to study them as well, believing it will be good for science (not to mention it was a paying gig).  But Motheresa’s feeling toward the Doc was never one of admiration.  Later, they discover that perhaps the Doc’s experiments benefited him more than science as a whole, and it’s becoming clear that Motheresa decided to enact some revenge of her own.  It’s also discovered that someone within Foot’s ranks has been working with her the whole time.  On top of all that, Foot stumbles onto the sole reason Yeti was murdered, and it spells doom for the entire planet.

This penultimate chapter from writer Joey Esposito and artist Jonathan Moore continues to keep me on the edge of my seat while still taking time to go back into the past to see what brought everyone together, what tore them apart, and the true beast that lies within Motheresa.  I’m surprised to see how much I could feel for the characters.  It sucks to know one of them is a traitor, but it’s clear that he’s just being manipulated which just mucks up the whole deal because now you don’t know exactly if you should feel sorry for him or angry or what.  I’m legitimately concerned for Chupacabra and Jersey Devil.  I’m sorry for Yeti and Bigfoot because the moment Motheresa came into their lives, things began to unravel a bit.  They have to deal with her being treated as a monster, not really sure if she truly is a monster or not.  Motheresa, herself, is a captivating character.  You know she’s downright evil, she’s scary, yet beautiful.  You just want to watch everything she does (a lot of that is thanks to Moore’s spectacular art in this series).  Ultimately, this series is very easy for readers to become invested in and you suddenly find yourself caring to the point of concern on a very real level that not all these characters will survive the story.  Simply put, that’s a sign of flat out awesome talent from both Esposito and Moore.

Speaking of Moore’s art, there’s such a mood to it that’s almost thick enough to cut.  It so perfectly fits the noir story.  It’s like I threw a Humphrey Bogart movie into the DVD player.  It’s dark and there’s a real tangibility to it that makes you feel like you are viewing things in a very real world way.  It literally looks like a real place and the characters look like real people and things.  They fit their world and no one bats an eye about these monsters running about.  I would think so many artists would be tempted to always have someone looking at these characters with a confused or funny look on their faces as they pass by.  Not here.  This is all treated with sincerity as if they’ve always belonged here among us.

Without a doubt this series takes itself seriously, as it should, but Esposito and Moore handle every little piece of the story and art with just the right amount of right amount of restraint and the right amount of really cool moments to build a great recipe for a great story.  When this series hits the streets, you really would have a hard time to do better than Footprints.

If you are interested in reading Footprints, and I strongly recommend you do if you enjoy either monsters or mysteries with a gritty noir style, tell your local comic book shop to pre-order the trade paperback.  It is currently found in Previews with a final cutoff date of 12/21/2011.  Please support this independent gem.  The best way to do this would be to tell your shops to help generate some momentum for this book and order a couple copies!

I can say for certain that you can get this book on, and after, 2/29/2012 at Dee Puppy Comics Online.  Check it out!

Tags: 215 Ink Footprints Joey Esposito Jonathan Moore Slider