Getting To Know You: Reviewing ‘Lunar Room’ #2

Creating new stories within new worlds and having them hit in a way that people keep returning to them can be a hit-and-miss situation. Even things that have connections to established names or brands can have a hard time getting off the ground, as they try and figure out who and what they are.

Lunar Room is one of those new things that doesn’t have that problem, as it hits right away and allows for easy deep involvement.

Right away in the first issue Danny Lore, Giorgia Sposito, DJ Chavis, and Andworld Design introduced us to a world that was fantasy/supernatural meets science fiction full of compelling characters. There was tons that wasn’t said or shared about the world then, but enough was given to whet the appetite. This second issue brings even more of the meal to the table as it dives deeper into main character Cynthia “Sin” Breaker’s past, through caption boxes, while bringing more characters onto the game board and furthering all the various plot threads that have been revealed so far.

Lore is a master at both character development and world-building, whether when working on their own projects or work for hire style situations, and this is just another book that showcases that constantly. In just two issues while not much has been fully stated about Sin, Zac Zero, Gloria, Angie, and others they all feel like they have depth and weight to them like they’ve been characters we’ve been seeing for years rather than just over a month.

The back and forth between Zero and Sin feels natural and real, and we get a great sense of who they are for the most part and their desires and their attitudes and how they are regarding one another, and we learn what Zero is really after. The same even goes for the antagonists that we get to know more about, as we see the woman known as Angie at work with a new nobody and then their boss Gloria is brought into the picture making a very dramatic and telling entrance. We even know what the title of the book refers to now, and have some great backstory there too.

Paired with the great character work and world-building is the gorgeous and tone-setting work that Spasito and Chavis are doing with the art. There is so much care and depth put into every single detail, the world looking like one could just jump into the pages and be in this city. Also, I just love the way that Spasito goes about paneling, as it’s so willing to shift and grow and do things that one normally doesn’t see. Back-to-back we get a stunning full-page close-up of Angie with the new guy Nobody killing someone behind her, followed by Sin in a fight where the panels across the double page spread are in various geometric shapes from squares to triangular to a variety of odd engaging shapes.

With the colors, Chavis makes a lot of the pages just pop as there is a slick bright style to the colors, but they also have a lot of heavy shadows and darkness to them befitting this world and the story. We get so many great silhouettes of both people and things like trees (in the fight scene where the evening sky and look of the world feel realistically spot-on). Lots of reds and yellows and oranges that are popping up all over following the amped-up emotions of many pages alongside cooler blues and greens that highlight some of the more conversational pages.

Those at Andworld Design are lettering more and more books these days, for very good reason. There is so much depth and attention paid to the lettering, and it’s consistent across their works while also matching the energy of whatever given book is being discussed. The caption boxes that match a character color-wise, to help maintain who they belong to is still something I’m fond of with this series. There is less shifting this issue, as it’s Sin’s story right now, but it’s still a great touch. SFX that are big and bold and prominent are always a favorite too and we get a good helping of those here too.

Lunar Room #2 is now on sale in print and digitally from Vault Comics.