Jay Gunn’s Surface Tension comics were originally released in 2015, which means this review is not what you might call up-to-date. With news that Surface Tension has been optioned for TV it’s a good time to have another look and see what it’s all about before everybody is talking about it. Get in before it’s huge.
Surface Tension is an intriguing prospect. It’s written an illustrated by Jay Gunn, a man who had a crazy dream to produce a comic some time ago. After an early demo comic in 2006 received some good feedback, Surface Tension was born after a long gestation interrupted by Stage 2 cancer. Surface Tension is described as “a delirious mix of Hayao Miyasaki and The Walking Dead“. With that setup I wanted to know more. The official synopsis says “Months ago, 99% of humanity walked into the sea and dissolved. When two people are washed up on the beach of the tiny island of Breith – their biology completely rewritten – the survivors of Breith are thrown into chaos. Are they our last hope – or our executioners?” After that, I had to read it.
The story lives up to the description. The characters have good depth, carrying on their ‘normal’ life on a small British Channel Island surrounded by monsters which prevent them from leaving. It’s one year after the sea-sickness – a time when giant coral Sentinels appeared and drew people out to sea. As the story progresses we learn more about the two mysterious survivors who have been washed ashore, (they look very human other than being blue, but what are they?), the Sentinel worship ping Shell People cult, the Sentinels themselves and monsters. Lots and lots of monsters! It ends with the potential for further comics, and you can tell how this might work on TV.
Moving on from the excellent story, the first thing that strikes you about Surface Tension is the artwork. The detailed cover leads onto a sparse opening few pages, consisting of red, black and a lot of white. As soon as the story starts there’s an explosion of colour as we discove
r Breith.
Jay Gunn grew up near the coast and made many visits to the Channel Islands to invent Breith, and it shows. There are some fascinating articles at the end of Surface Tension that explain Gunn’s art process. There’s a map of Breith with the position of the Corals, some virtual ‘sets’ based on real buildings, photos of people and locations. The drawings are sketched by hand but digitally coloured for a bright, vivid appearance. Fictional Breith is almost a real place (located somewhere between Jersey and Guernsey, and slightly larger than Alderney if you’re interested). The normal scenes on Breith contrast with the mutants and other monsters. You can tell that this is going to look great on TV once they find the right locations, but it sounds like Jay Gunn has done a lot of the work for them. Get the comic and definitely keep looking out for the TV series.
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