There is something to be said for persistence, for a creator’s steadfast devotion to a concept over the course of many years. We’ve seen it in books, in print comics, on the web – Stephen King wrote his best sellers but always had some portion of “The Dark Tower” floating around the back of his head; Orson Scott Card returns to the Ender and Alvin Maker series; Harvey Pekar continues to plug away on “American Splendor.” So I have to give credit to Joachim Lipski – he’s been working on some aspect of ad1997 for close to 8 years now if I read the background notes properly. That amount of time spent thinking about the characters and the world shines through in his author’s notes. He obviously enjoys these characters, this setting, and the process he’s gone through to develop them. And many of his pages show a lot of care taken in the design and layout.
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Welcome back! If you read my first review and came back again, congrats! If you read it and didn’t come back, then who are you and why are you posing as someone else?

Ok, I admit it. I don’t have the time to sit and read through 2 or 3 years of archives in order to get the big picture of the webcomic, talk about the evolution of the art, and all those other fancy things that artists do. Why? Well, if I told you that I’d give away information that could be detrimental to my secret identity (I’m NOT crazy – read the bio! They wrote it, I didn’t) so you’ll just have to take my word for it. Despite that, I do my level darndest to read as much of the webcomic as I can in order to give what I consider to be a relatively informed opinion on the comic.

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Ad1997 is a black and white comic colored with greytones. The linework is interesting, with a great variety of line and lots of black. It’s fun to look at.

The choice of view in the panels reminds me of a movie storyboard. For some reason, the movie Die Hard comes to mind but I’m not sure exactly why that movie in particular. Over time, the art gets a little crisper and easier to follow, too.

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A.D. 1997 involves a huge multinational corporation, and a murder that threatens to unravel, well, everything. I was looking forward to reading and reviewing a non gag humor comic this time, so let’s get right into it.

Artwise this comic has a unique look, with lots of busy linework and a bubbly, almost anime style in blacks, grays and whites. There is lots to look at, with very detailed skylines and crowded streets and cityscapes. Now, with that said, I found it highly confusing at times to figure out what was going on in certain panels.

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Next week’s review is on ad1997 and we will have another eyeful of reviews for you to enjoy next Friday. We also…

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