Proof #12 (Image – Grecian / Rossmo / Guzowski)
The last Chinese Ink Monkey fights for its life against a rogue fairy. The Lodge will be changed forever.
I know this has been out for two weeks, but Proof is always worth talking about. Better late than never.
Proof is still one of my favorite regular series, even on what I would call a “set-up” issue. Some of the members of the Lodge find that Autumn was experimenting on fairies and selling secrets and / or specimens to unknown parties. Having a hole in the Lodge’s security could be huge for the rest of the crew.
It would seem the the blind “community leader” preacher-type is warming up to Proof, who takes the name John. This seemed a bit odd at the time, at least odd to me. To be honest I am usually put on my guard when a protagonist come up against a “Christian Cult”. Sometimes when an author creates this sort of storyline, the underlining meta-message is “all people of faith are crackpots”. Not true here. Here in Proof, this is simply a plot device, and not some thinly-veiled socio-political message.
The blind preacher connects with Proof as he brings him to a cave where the mother of the Thunderbirds nests. Turns out the Proof heroes will be taking on a dragon. A dragon you say? DId I mention socio-political messages before? What a quinky-dink? Because we get a cameo of the Savage Dragon at the end of the issue. It would seem that the Savage Dragon is connected to the Lodge and sent in for back-up. I cannot wait to see the Dragon and Proof work together through the rest of the case, and the interaction of these two heroes as told by Mr. Grecian.
On top of another month of good writing and fantastic art, we get: great slugfest between a fairy and the Ink Monkey, a 2-page set of directions seemingly lifted from a fantasy version of Better Homes and Gardens on how to make a Butterscotch pie and how to keep fairies away from it, a out-of-the-box cover which I hope is turned into a promotional poster and another domino in the slow-moving Mexican Train that is the Adventures of Archie Snow
Issue Grade: A