Comic Review: Moth City #3

Tim Gibson first started Moth City  in October 2012 and began telling the story of an American industrialist given a small island by the Chinese in return for making terrible weapons. As the story began to unfold, a strange murder and Communist uprisings began the island’s descent into chaos. Now, through Comixology Submit, Tim is able to not only offer the comic on the site, but also sell it to people all over the world. The first part of season two of the story begins in issue #3.

After some odd murders and some stolen weapons, Governor McCaw begins to look into the man who made the weapons, even if he is dead. At the same time, Glitter, McCaw’s daughter, stumbles into the underground Communist movement, who may have a little something to do with the stolen weapons. Even as the dead rise, the Chinese Army burns all boats and traps all people on the island. All the searches and hunts continue on, only to likely inevitably collide.

Tim Gibson does both art and story on this very unique comic. Tim describes it as “pulpy-noir-horror” and that’s true. It’s hard to exactly classify the story and style, but whatever it is, it’s good. Tim manages to weave multiple plot lines together in a way that doesn’t feel rushed or scattered. The art captures the expressions of the various characters well. There are a lot of downtrodden and defeated people on the island, and it shows. At the same time, the more vibrant action sequences are drawn fluidly and the digital format helps to make them a bit more special. Moth City plays to the format of the comic exceptionally well. Many digital comics in this Comixology “guided view” style format seem to have it added as an afterthought, but Moth City plays it up. It uses the style to introduce the dialogue and story in ways that only help to make it have a greater impact. As the foreword says, this is what future creators will be stealing ideas from.

Moth City is something different. It’s something special, and that’s not just because of the format. The story that casually reveals things like the big reveal at the end of this issue, while also nurturing multiple lines of political intrigue and mystery is something different than most of what’s out today. And, frankly, it’s a welcome thing. This third issue can be found on Comixology, along with the previous two issues.

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