And this background shows, because he has an excellent sense of scene direction.

Puvilland, comes from an animation background, currently working for DreamWorks Animation while doing “Spill Zone” on the side. Of course, it helps that he’s working with creators like Puvilland and Sycamore. Being a good prose writer does not necessarily translate to a good comics writer, but Westerfeld takes to comics like a seasoned pro. Interestingly, most of the emotional content is carried by the visuals instead. Addison, the main character, also serves as the narrator, and it’s easy to see how the narration could have been used to do more of the heavy lifting, especially in terms of Addison’s emotions. The story itself is tailor-made for comics, with the Po’Town spill zone itself being a major visual component. And I don’t just mean this in a page by page or even scene by scene way-the whole story structure is built around important pieces of story information being revealed visually. Often times a prose writer switching to comics tends to overwrite at least a little, but Westerfeld seems entirely comfortable with stepping back and letting the art tell the story. Honestly, I’m rather surprised that this is Westerfeld’s first solo comics writing project, because he displays a tremendous amount of trust in his fellow creators. That’s not a common experience for me.Ī big part of that is the way Scott Westerfeld, Alex Puvilland, and Hilary Sycamore work together. However, despite being digital, I got sucked in big time.

“Spill Zone” kicked off early October of last year, but I only discovered it about two weeks ago. I’m not the kind of person that likes reading a book on a computer screen-I distance myself from it when I can-which is probably why a lot webcomics I’d really enjoy seem to slip under my radar time and time again. Addison Merrick is one such explorer, dedicated to finding out what happened that night, and to unraveling the events that took her parents and left her little sister mute and disconnected from the world. But a few intrepid explorers know how to sneak through the patrols and steer clear of the dangers inside the Zone. Was it an angelic visitation? A nanotech accident? A porthole opening from another world? Whatever it was, no one’s allowed in the Spill Zone these days except government scientists and hazmat teams. Nobody’s ever really explained the Spill.

The spill zone