The Pull
TKO Studios
Written by: Steve Orlando
Art by: Ricardo Lopez Ortiz
Colors by: Triona Farrell
Letters by: Thomas Mauer
Wasn’t sure what to expect when it came time to crack open The Pull.
“What would you do if you only had six days left to live — give up or fight back?”
The end-of-times vibe sounded interesting, but the idea that you could somehow fight back against the apocalypse seemed weird. Because if you know the world is about to end, what can you do? It’s one thing if you have to fend off zombies to stay alive or try to find a cure for a virus, but it didn’t seem either example was the type of apocalypse readers were dealing with in The Pull.
And with this story having such a grim tone, the use of extremely bright colors seemed strange.
Yet, it all works — so well.
Ricardo Lopez Ortiz captures the ridiculous range of emotions these characters experience. His action sequences have a Dragon Ball Z vibe — who doesn’t love that.
Triona Farrell’s colors give the story a futuristic feel. Again, the bright colors are an odd choice with the story’s tone. But because Ortiz’s work is so good and the story itself is very strong, Farrell’s colors work more as an accent than as a tone-setter.
As for Steve Orlando: he knocked this out of the park. He plants seeds of doubt along the way, keeping readers guessing from start to finish.
Orlando decided to tell the story without a narrator, which I’m generally in favor of anyway. In this case, it was extremely important we didn’t get inside the minds of the characters.
I still have one more book from the TKO Studios’ third wave left to read. At the moment, The Pull is my favorite of the bunch — and it won’t be easy to surpass it.