3 out of 5

There’s a pin-up image in the book of this DHP collected one-shot that Gabriel Hardman states was ‘the initial image I worked up when Corinna and I first conceived of the story.’  It’s a fully realized picture of a madly creepy awesome Lovecraft-tentacled blob thing floating in the sky with dinosaurs running toward it and flying all about it and a scientist hanging about shadowed ‘neath some wreckage in the foreground.  Hardman’s art style has the sort of naturalistic inking sweep of Michael Lark blended with Allred’s pantomimed poses/expressions and, uh, Sean Phillip’s sketchiness.    His lettering is pretty flat and standardized, with a respectable uniformity to bubble placement and justification.

These statements summarize why ‘Station to Station’ was destined to be average, and how it’s fully typified as such through its look.  The book feels like a script fit to an idea, which, in my reading experience, often happens when an artist uses an image as a springboard for a story, and though Hardman’s art is packed with some pretty awesome moments – namely involving that blob, since its design is pretty creepily original (sorry for the Lovecraft thing, but we all associate tentacle monsters with the man) – but it lacks a sense of confidence that says ‘this is Hardman’s art,’ as opposed to the looks-like manner in which I described.  The lack of character in the lettering emphasizes this, and the disconnect between script and story happens too often for a one-shot, with some panels attempting to create a moment of drama or action through pacing but failing because the focus (visually) is uncertain or in other spots, a dramatic pause is unearned by the text that preceded.  It’s a bit too much story for such few pages, perhaps, or – again, art before script – the creators wanted to have certain images in the book and so chose to tell the story from the wrong point in time, requiring some clunkily included flashbacks that really make no sense once we get to the ‘twist.’

However, I’m tearing apart a tough format – the short story – by some relatively youthful creators, and I don’t mean to sell this book short.  Although the story is familiar – an explosion, a dimensional portal, scientist must close the rift – the duo toss in a ray gun, some dinosaurs, some explosions, some mutants, some conspiracies, and some giant creatures all with gusto.  The penciling and inking might not have seemed wholly original to me, but they’re a fuck’s field better than they are bad, and Hardman takes some best bits from all the creators mentioned and does them very well.  The coloring, meanwhile, is gorgeous.  Assuming this falls under ‘art,’ the book picks a uniquely Spring-y palette – definitely unusual for the blotty ink style – which gives the main creature a haunting off-color glow and gives the island on which the action takes place a real living and breathing freshness.

Overall, although things are a bit too compressed here, this is what shorts can be good for – giving us a taste.  If Bechko and Hardman spun off an expanded series from this, I would definitely give it another chance.  But, y’know, just take your time with the narrative.  We don’t always need an explosion or an explanation by page three.