There’s an idea in storytelling that, if built and focused on in the right ways, a place can become a central character in its own right. While it doesn’t speak, react, or think in the ways our traditional protagonists do, observing the way that a room, a building, or even a city changes over time can tell us so much about the world around it. It’s an idea that we see played with in stories ranging in scope from Richard McGuire’s Here, which tells the story of a single room over the course of aeons, to Scott Snyder’s and Greg Capullo’s Batman run, which saw Gotham characterized as a living organism– a “savage city.”
Tomorrow, Strip Panel Naked creator Hassan OtsmaneElhaou releases PanelxPanel #3. The critical e-magazine plays host to a variety of steady comics-related interviews, process pieces, and even original comics. Each month’s issue also focuses on a new book being released that week.
This month’s PanelxPanel feature book is Savage Town, the new Image Comics graphic novel by illustrator Philip Barrett and artist-turned-writer Declan Shalvey. The OGN follows an upstart named Jimmy Savage who gets between two major gangs in Limerick, Ireland, and decides to make a power play for the throne.
But as much as we follow Jimmy in this story, there’s an argument to be made that Barrett and Shalvey are really asking us to follow the breaths and sighs of Limerick itself. Vice contributor and The Dregs co-writer Lonnie Nadler makes that argument in a special essay about Savage Town, which you can check out the beginning of in our special preview of PanelxPanel #3 after the jump.
You can pick up PanelxPanel here.
