by Joe Schickman, Reporter

Get ready music fans, because Spectrum #2 from Rick Quinn and Dave Chisholm is now available at your local comic store. Cue the playlist and let’s dive in.

Official Synopsis:
Do you ever wish your life was more normal? Ada Latimer wants to be normal. She owns a quiet little record store. She’s in love with her corny (but sweet) boyfriend. But the chance for normalcy vanished when her father Leon abandoned her as a child to search for the mythical record producer George Parker. The ramifications of Leon’s quest come back around as Echo, one of the Sustained-a being with the power to alter reality through music-shows up at Ada’s shop looking for answers. So much for “normal.”

Creative Team:
Writer: Rick Quinn
Artist:  Dave Chisholm
Letterer: Dave Chisholm

Recap:

In Spectrum #1, a deep foundation was laid as we met Melody Parker, a young girl with a mysterious origin, and we saw the harsh reality she was trapped in. Music was Melody’s only escape from the oppressive bleakness and cruelty of her world, but she feared losing herself in that escape as the music offered either salvation, insanity, or perhaps both. That fear affirmed after she was approached by an ominous stranger named Echo, one of the musically mythological figures of immense power known as the Sustained. The appearance of Echo loosened Melody’s already tenuous grasp on corporeality and as she slipped even further away from her terrestrial tether, she fled into the musical maelstrom of madness which had begun enveloping her.

But instead of seeing Melody’s sanity finally severed and shattered, we learned through various visions and Echo’s exposition that music is linked to the origins of the universe and continually shapes it through the hands and minds of artists and musicians. There are even certain special individuals who hold the power to directly morph the world around them through music magic. Among those gifted musical mages, an endless battle over the universe’s direction and fate has been waged for eons beyond measure. Melody is one such special individual, with the various warring factions vying to enlist her to their cause, seeking her in each rebirth and new life.

At the apex of Spectrum # 1, Melody resoundingly rejected Echo’s offer to join her, escaping to find the song signaling sonic safety and salvation at the heights of a local radio tower. Melody climbed higher and higher, propelled by a personal promise to find her mother’s voice, which had been lost among the din of disparate desperation denoting the decline of humanity on the eve of the new millennium. While she ascended the tower she began to experience clarity as the intonation of her power’s instrument tuned, resolving the dissonances and consonances of the world and all her past lives. When she reached the top she found deliverance and reverie for the first time in her life (well, this life) causing Melody’s musical metamorphosis to manifest into a choral chrysalis. Finally feeling free, Melody stepped off the sky-clad platform with a leap of faith just as her powers truly took flight for the very first time, revealing the musical monarch within.

Spectrum #2 opens to reveal a young boy harkened by a sonorous strand of musical force flowing by, distracting him from the dotted pages of his Fabulous Four comic. Following its trail, he discovers music merging from multiple vectors to form a sphere of energy hovering over the water, drawing in massive melodious might. He stands deafened and dumbfounded by the overwhelming cacophony of sound and light coalescing before him.

But before we can learn more, the scene shifts to the Unpopular Pop record store, where the owner, Ada Latimer, laments her choice in vocation given her complicated relationship with music. Patrons in the store discuss the merits of myriad musical methodologies, debating composition vs. improvisation, inspiration vs. purity, romance vs. stupidity, all while sifting through a record collection chalked full of subtle real world references laced throughout. Their conversation acts as allegory for the greater ideas surrounding various understandings of the universe, including scientific discoveries in cosmology, deism, intelligent design, and convergent evolution.

Among the storegoers is Melody Parker, apparently perusing the one dollar deals, seemingly unchanged from before her encounter with Echo, and still shying away from the pop music beloved by her childhood oppressors. As this mundane scene unfolds, an unusual bird Melody dubs the dove of hope suddenly appears out of nowhere to cause in store chaos. Ada chases it out, knocking over Melody in the process, but is baffled by how it got in through her store’s closed door in the first place. She is able to get it outside before witnessing it transmogrify into a paper bag, perplexing Unpopular Pop’s proprietor further.

Leaving Ada no time to ruminate over the ridiculousness of that anomalous event, her boyfriend Theo arrives ready to take her out for a special night. Ada quickly closes shop, noting the sudden absence of Melody who was present a mere moment before, and heads out with Theo. Her internal monologue reveals that she is happy with Theo, but past pains prevent her from fully feeling present with him, especially since he reminds her so much of someone who abandoned her.

It is revealed that years earlier Ada’s loving father, Leon, was obsessed with a music producer named George Parker (perhaps a reference to acclaimed music producer George Martin). Leon’s ambition drove him to an unyielding quest for musical perfection under George Parker’s guidance, causing strife between Leon and Ada’s mother. Until, without warning, both father and producer disappeared without a trace. Ada has been haunted by those disappearances ever since.

The special event Theo has planned for her is an art installation called “The Silence of a Thousand Flapping Wings” and is meant to make the observer experience immaterial weightlessness akin to floating in the void of outer space. The artist who designed the installation experienced hallucinations and visions of lights, auras, and dense fields of dots, forming her own artistic obsession. Ada reflects on how art and obsession seem to go hand in hand, the work pulling all of your focus and time until you’ve severed the connections with those around you, much as her father did all those years before.

Upon exiting the art installation, Theo has disappeared, and Ada is left once again feeling abandoned by one she loved and trusted. But this time she is not left alone for long as Melody returns just in the nick of time to save Ada from a confrontation with Echo. Melody pulls Ada into her reality warping realm, explaining the universal secrets she has learned since the last issue. From here the carefully crafted connections begin to snowball, as Melody’s father is revealed to be George Parker, and both their fathers’ disappearances and Theo’s are all linked, as are the numerous artist and musicians referenced throughout. But what is the connection, and where will this all lead? The exciting climax discloses more than one surprise and once again leaves the reader wondering what will come next before begging for more.

Spectrum #2 excellently expands on the wondrous world building Rick Quinn developed in Issue 1, pushing us further towards the edge of our proverbial seats page after page, panel after panel. The slow burn reveal of the many non-linear plot threads weaving this mystifying pattern together powerfully pulls the reader along, before sending us back to the beginning to experience everything again so that we may fully appreciate the complete narrative. The level of subtle detail permeating each picture provided by artist Dave Chisholm creates an elegant optical delight with layer upon layer of nuance to explore and re-explore. The visual conveyance of emotion and drama, love and loss, excitement and peril, and surreal surroundings all present from cover to cover as we switch back and forth between a world familiar and a world of fantasy is fresh and stylish, and perfectly accompanies this elaborate and riveting story. I can’t wait to read issue 3.

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives Spectrum #2 – 4.5 out of 5 overtures.

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