Echo is the new series from Terry Moore, best known for Strangers in Paradise.  With this series, he seems to be trying something a little more action-oriented, although in a fairly laid back sort of way.

Military bad guys have built an experimental flying suit, which they end up blasting to smithereens in a test - much to the annoyance of the hapless pilot.  In the desert below, a photographer called Julie gets caught in the fallout and... well, I guess gets superhuman powers?  Kind of?  Sort of?  Actually, given the title (and the next-issue preview), I suspect I know where Moore is heading with this, but the first issue doesn't quite get that far.

Instead, what we have is - in plot terms, at least - a fairly standard origin story.  Nasty people, bad experiment, innocent passer-by, weirdness ensues.  You've seen it a million times before.

But Terry Moore is very, very good, and he can get away with this sort of first issue.  It's all in the details.  A lot of people couldn't get away with, for example, spending two virtually dialogue-free pages on the lead character taking shelter from a glorified hailstorm.  Moore can, for a variety of reasons.  For one thing, he's a master of pacing; he's got a number of key points to get across, and he makes them at length, without any distractions. 

For another, Moore has the subtlety and mastery of body language to bring a character to life, and make her interesting, even when she's simply reacting to something.  Julie barely says anything in this issue.  In fact, other than exclamations and cries, the sum total of her dialogue is "They don't bounce", two lines of dialogue addressed to her dog, and "Oh my god, what have I done?"  And she's in the book for eleven pages, mind you.  Yet she still seems like a rounded character - partly because of the background details, partly because Moore knows how to do reactions.

This issue really brings home to me why most attempts at "decompressed" storytelling fail.  You can absolutely do page after page of not a great deal happening, and rely on the subtle details of human response to make it work.  The catch is that you need to be really good to pull it off - you need to know how to make every detail contribute to the whole, instead of just spending page after page photostatting the same panel.  Moore can do it, and get away with it, which proves how good he is.

Now, the concept is pretty basic, and I suspect that it's going to remain at least somewhat familiar.  But I also have faith in Moore to bring out the best in it.  This looks like a strong series.

Rating: A

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