Shipwreck, Volume 1 Review

A man staggers across a desolate landscape, unsure where he is or how he got there. What few people he encounters live a brutal life, butchering one another for food or performing ritual killings. Birds ominously circle overhead. Is he dead – is this the afterlife? Or is he somewhere else… and who is he anyway?

Huzzah! A good comic – I knew I’d find one again eventually! I don’t want to give too much away as uncovering the mystery is part of the fun of Shipwreck but I found the protagonist’s motivations and methods to be an intriguingly original marriage even if both are sci-fi tropes.

I also liked how Warren Ellis wrote Shipwright, the main character, particularly towards the end when we find out everything about him. And the scenarios along the way like the opening scene in the diner followed by the death bell in the desert were so weird and compelling, adding to the atmosphere of disorientation.

I’m in two minds about those scenes though as the world Shipwright wanders around is very underwritten and I wonder if Ellis might’ve done better to flesh it out rather than devote two whole issues (out of six) to these go-nowhere set pieces. There’s no Volume 2 either – this is a self-contained story – so we’ll never know more than what’s here. The strange people Shipwright meets are also little more than ciphers than fully realised characters, making the world that much more unknowable.

The finale is a little underwhelming and unsatisfying and Phil Hester’s art was a bit too craggy and indistinct when it came to the character designs – Shipwright and the antagonist looked very similar in close-ups, so it’s not immediately clear what’s happening in that penultimate issue.

Still, I was never bored reading Shipwreck and enjoyed it a lot. It’s an original comic the likes of which I’ve never read before and the story got more exciting as it went on. An entertaining, action-packed mystery with snappy writing, stylish art and a fast-moving plot – Warren Ellis does it again!