X-O Manowar #8 Spotlight: Penciling & Inking Part 1

 

X-O Manowar #8 Cover A by Rahzzah

As with Javier Pulido in Ninjak #4, Emilio Laiso does the first few pages of X-O Manowar #8, then steps aside for someone else to take over the penciling and inking. Emilio has done such a beautiful job on this series, bringing a welcome softness to the overall look of the book, as well as imbuing all the characters with warmth and personality, that it's hard to contemplate him leaving. But the Previews website lists him as the artist for X-O Manowar #9, so hopefully that's correct, and he'll be back to complete this series.

Fingers crossed, Emilio Laiso fans!

 

 

I love how Emilio draws this panel. He captures a slice of the 9 to 5 office worker's life, in which white collar workers look out through the plate glass windows and see their world erupting in chaos. It's one of those scenes we see a lot in cinemas, where ordinary life is suddenly shattered by a huge storm, or dinosaurs, or giant robots rising from the ocean and striding through the streets. 

Imagine workers in London, England, watching from the Post Office Tower, or the Gherkin building, as the giant dinosaur in Savage #1 strode through the streets, smashing cars underfoot, and finally grabbing Big Ben and ripping it off the ground to swing like a Cricket Bat. This time, it's not Professor Nealon who's responsible for the attack, but Troy Whitaker.

 

One of the things that intrigues me in X-O Manowar #8 is how young Desmond holds the Shanhara orb. He's come to know this alien consciousness that inhabits Aric's armor over a many months--perhaps as much as a year at this point. Due to what happened to Aric at the end of X-O Manowar #7, the orb may contain the last of Shanhara's essence.

Yet he cradles her. He lifts her up, making his hands a pedestal for her. She may have become his friend, but his hands resemble those of a supplicant, or a person in awe of someone much greater--and more powerful--than himself.

Which is, of course, exactly the case.

 

Emilio drew Desmond gazing upon Manhattan as the Hive Mind's attacked. Now we see the results: New York City better resembles an alien planet. This panel reminds me of a scene from one of Stephen R Donaldson's timeless novels, in which Thomas Covenant returns to a fantasy land he thinks he knows, only to see it erupt before him, with months of plant growth occurring in minutes. 

In X-O Manowar #8, penciler and inker Emilio Laiso shows us how ordinary people react to the extraordinary, how much Desmond loves Shanhara, and how a world we think we know can--in an instant--become foreign and unrecognizable. Well done, Emilio!

Dragon Dave

P.S. I need to add that Raffaele Forte inked Emilio's pages for X-O Manowar #8. So every line or inked-in shadow you see, that's his work too. Great job, Raffaele!