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Prophet #27 Review

By Dan Horn
July 27, 2012 - 11:38

Christ, I wish I weren't following this book so that I might one day discover the dense and immersive backlog this series accrues. It's too late for that now, however, and here I sit, already jonesing for next month's graphical diamorphine dream that is Prophet.

Dreamlike, I think, is an accurate assessment of this book's progression. Brandon Graham's storytelling oscillates phantasmagorically between abstract constructivism and a weird romanticism that makes the isolation of your room feel like the endless vacuum of space. It puts a pit in your stomach that you can't quite fathom for its strange origins.

In the newest installment, Prophet #27, we've come a long way from the god satellites, astral guides, the nephilim-killing ejaculate of living lances, and the organic regenerative robots of the previous issues, but it's all culminating in the original John Prophet's reemergence and quest for revenge against the Earth Empire which still utilizes John's clones for their imperial interests. Here, old man John is reassembling his allies for something momentous, and something that just slightly touches on broader Image Comics franchised continuity.

If you're not really able to follow the plot from month to month, I wouldn't blame you. Graham's Prophet isn't simply subtle; it can be downright abstruse, moreso a vehicle for the book's prodigious artistic showcase than a  heavily-scripted, blockbuster epic. It is epic, however, in every sense of the word, spanning space and time and constructing a vividly and uniquely original mythos, but the series moves in mysterious ways, often progressing the narrative through detached artistic perspective and by the sheer newness of its worlds and concepts. In this way, Moebius' L'Incal is the direct inflectional progenitor of Prophet, and it's nothing short of mystifying to have the opportunity to pick up a contemporary art book like that right off the comic shop stands every month.

The art contained within each issue is mind-expanding. Prophet is an embarrassment of riches in this regard, employing the geniuses of such cartoonists as Simon Roy, Graham himself, Farel Dalrymple, and, in this particular issue in addition to others, Old City Blues' Giannis Milonogiannis. Prophet acts as a crash course in counter-culture cartooning, abutting that position with its bizarre and often poignant sci-fi shorts that close each episode. I only hope this series continues for several years, because artistic revelations in a serialized format like this are very few and unfathomably far between.

Next month will be a great opportunity for readers to catch up with this series as the first trade volume of Prophet, collecting the first six issues (#21-26), will be released.

Rating: 9.5 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12