Stormwatch P.H.D 6 page 10 by Doug Mahnke

A nice page from a hidden gem of a Wildstorm wave 2 series. Stormwatch PHD shared a lot of similarities with worldwide success the Boys as it featured a team of mostly human hardass characters dealing with super powered (Daemonites) super villains. The main big difference was the absence of goofy over the top humor Ennis is known for, which is a plus for me as I don't particularly find amusing to see dolfins run over by a truck or character putting hamsters in their colon. But I digress.

It was mostly for me a revelation to Christos Gage great writing nicely supplemented by Doug Mahnke's over muscular art.

I'll confess this page is mostly a page holder as art from this series doesn't surface much. A true incentive is that it was dirt cheap AND Mahnke is inking himself on this book which is treat as he is more often than not inked by a plethora of inkers within the same issues he is penciling, to various successes.

Which is not to say there isn't a lot to enjoy on this page.

For one, Doug is very good at drawing over the top physiques as Lord Defile BUT he can also draw sexy women as Lady Decadence both can attest (I had to look the names up I confess).

I also love the sense of alien culture radiating from their surrounding. From the disgusting pet (from her face, you can tell she is finding it super cute) getting fed poor mouses on the bed is the most obvious one to the human skulls used a coat hangers and other more organic designs within the room.

Then we have a truly disgusting and horrorful moment when MyLady is feeding a delicacy of another poor poor mouse to her LordDefile before kissing him a romantic mouthful while is likely still chewing on the poor poor rodent. That fifth panel is in that sense the worst of the whole page. Hugh.

This reminds me of the most terrifying scenes (to my young mind) from the badly aged « V » tv show. Anyone gets the same vibe from this?

And then the sixth panel offers a true dichotomy to the rest of the page as we truly get a shot of 2 lovers 50s/60s Romance comics wouldn't have reneged.

So, not much of a page at first glance, but analysis points us to a lot of enjoyable elements even if it makes this animal lover cringe quite a bit (but isn't the purpose of art to generate emotions in the viewer's eye after all?).