Carter Allen's AND THE SKY TURNED WHITE...

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Carter Allen's AND THE SKY TURNED WHITE...
By Leroy Douresseaux
July 29, 2005 - 19:15

Candle Light Press
Writer(s): Carter Allen
ISBN: 0-9766053-0-9

Andie, a young scientist, sits on a remote and lonely galactic outpost watching the border at the edge of the universe. Her only companion is a robot called E.A.R.L., and she talks to him when she isn’t monitoring her sector of space. One day, she loses contact with The Core, the place she sends her data. When a damaged ship crashes on her outpost and E.A.R.L. starts acting up, Andie learns troubling news that The End is near.

Carter Allen, who usually gives us a new entry in either the Dub Trub or Man is Vox series, has created AND THE SKY TURNED WHITE… a self-contained, short story-like, original graphic novel that harks back to old-timey science fiction. I can feel Harlan Ellison or the “Twilight Zone” with a touch of Marvel Universe cosmology thrown in for flavor in this tale. Imagine an action movie that leans towards Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey towards the end of the narrative – as the film Mission to Mars tried several years ago.

The computer rendered art is Allen’s most accomplished to date. The art is fluid and graceful. Andie is Carter’s sexiest heroine; her design is solid photo-realism that I couldn’t help noticing – because she’s so fine. There’s also more harmony between positive and negative spaces in the art, which allows Carter to create a film noir mood for his sci-fi action/metaphysical tale. In the end, And the Sky Turned White… is another example of Carter’s ability to create sci-fi comics that breathe and pulses – like film, making Carter’s voice unique (and lonely) in the small field of American science fiction comics. B+