ECC Ediciones publishes The Confines of Darkness, a post-apocalyptic work in which the protagonists learn about humanity through people they meet from the past.
ECC Ediciones publishes The Confines of Darkness, a post-apocalyptic adventure and science fiction novel illustrated and written by Haruo Iwamune. A work that reminds me a lot of works like The Last of Us or I Am Legend.
The work places us in our world but in a post-apocalyptic future. Strange creatures appeared that spread germs that caused people to get sick and die before they had a chance to survive. Fifty years after this event, the miasma rendered most of the surface uninhabitable, so civilization as we know it was gone and humanity was decimated. The story puts us in the shoes of Ushimitu Aya, a girl who is a temporary member of the Ushimitu Research Institute. The protagonist’s objective is to find and protect the survivors and clean up the disease-causing agent. At any time, the work follows Aya on her mission.
Find what’s left and what’s past
Iwamune takes us to a post-apocalyptic world where everything has fallen apart and the protagonist except her pet. We are faced with a mission where not a single character appears and we see the young Aya alone in her mission. The lack of dialogue means we’re faced with a manga that takes time to tell the story and detail what happened to the end of the world. The slow construction of the world also indicates that we are experiencing a work that can last a long time, although this depends on the artist’s estimation. For now, this shot seems to serve as an introduction to the world.
Even the lack of speech, does not mean that there is no text in this work. It may not have as much as others, but the world is being built little by little, all that is said here is enough for the reader. But the biggest reflections in Dark Limits happen when the main character meets someone. Aya doesn’t know anything about the past, she doesn’t even know other people, which means she doesn’t understand certain characteristics and examines everything with a certain innocence. Like any work of science fiction, it uses the future to make us reflect on the present.
And the picture tells us a story.
There seem to be people who think that in a medium like comics, the story can only be told through text, drawing becomes an excuse to capture the narrative. Iwamune’s work is a perfect example of how this idea is completely wrong and that visual narrative exists. The main character always contextualizes what she’s seeing with her own imagination, but even without that text you can imagine what happened.
The quality of the pictures is without a doubt, especially outdoors, where we can see the splendor of the buildings, even when nature has left us amazing images. The interior scenes may not be that impressive, but amazing wines appear from time to time. At any given moment they play with light and shadows that add to the feeling of solitude and the ruins of an ancient civilization.
Dark Limits Edition by ECC Ediciones
We are experiencing a well-made manga version. ECC brings us the first volume of this new collection in the usual tankobon format, softcover size 12.8 x 18 cm with dust jacket. We have to highlight the wonderful picture of both the volume and the dust jacket, which combines blue and silver gray colors, which creates a very curious and at the same time beautiful effect. The volume, made up of 224 black and white pages, sells for €9.95.
The dark limit – the mission in the apocalypse is a work with a lot of potential, using the usual science fiction and post-apocalyptic worlds, it creates a very interesting universe. We’re looking at a work that takes time to tell things and narrates events using visual art, so a reader who wants to be quick may not be interested in the work. Even so, if you’re interested in science fiction and history with great visual quality, you might want to look into Haruo Iwamune’s work.
Edge of Darkness – Quest in Apocalypse Vol. 01
Autores: Haruo Iwamune
Publisher: ECC Editions
Format: Softcover with dust jacket
Dimensions: 12.8 x 18 cm
Pages: 224 in black and white
ISBN: 978-84-19811-99-8
Price: 9,95 €
Synopsis: A girl searches for survivors among the beautiful ruins of a post-apocalyptic world. In this gray universe, unexpected encounters with machines and corpses occur: a faithful maid with the remains of her beloved master, a man who mechanized his body to continue watching movies, or parents who never stopped protecting their children. A past history where you know humanity.