The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Bi-Weekly Graphic Novel Number 61 - Fathom v.1, 2001

I don't know what it is, but I've never taken to Top Cow. Aside from the "Joe's Comics" imprint, and the two brilliant series that came out of it, I've never had much time for the likes of Witchblade, The Darkness, or Fathom. All I ever knew of them was that the female protagonists were impossibly slender, and very often mostly naked.

Both of which I stick by, but perhaps there's a bit more going on. In a recent gift of comics from a friend was a large collection of Fathom comics, some Tomb Raider and some Witchblade, so I thought it behooved me to actually have a look at this corner of the Image world. I'm quite glad I did.

What I hadn't realized, but what actually makes sense to me now, is that Top Cow seems to have been developing a house style, much as Marvel did in the 70s and 80s. The adoption of such a style works like branding, in that one knows what to expect from a Top Cow comic. Impossibly slender and mostly naked?

It's not always the case. And when it is, I have to admit that the male characters in the comic are also rather impossibly drawn and very often mostly naked. It is, after all, a series about beings who live in the water. What I hadn't expected from the book was that it would be telling a rather intriguing little science fiction tale. It's not a super-original premise, a lost civilization under the oceans, but the fluidity of Michael Turner's art works exceedingly well with this story. The whole thing flows like the bodies of the underwater civilization, and even the aforementioned impossible slenderness of the main character works when we see her as an extension of, or extending into, the water that surrounds her. I've just picked up a Witchblade trade paperback, featuring art by Turner, and it doesn't quite work as well, I don't think. Perhaps all of that other work was simply studies in how to draw people who are, more so than we, part water.

And that's where I'll stop. This time. The thing is that I actually have 3 different versions of this story: today's trade, the original run of comics, and some collected editions that came out at the time. So I'll be reading at the very least the first part of this trade a couple more times during the project. I'll leave some ideas for those read throughs.

Onward!