Kyle Strahm's Clockwork Creature

One of the cool artists that I ran into through the Kansas City comic scene is Kyle Strahm. He has been working on his Clockwork Creature story for some time and now it is being put into graphic novel form by Ambrosia Publishing, as well as being serialized online for free. It is the tale of strange creature that is terrorizing a small town and the equally strange "savior" who offers the townsfolk a way of ridding themselves of it.

This is not your typical story as Kyle is using it as a storytelling exercise, spending only a few hours on each page. He really has a lot of fun with this tale... it's anything but predictable. It's full of quirky characters and creatures along with plenty of odd twists and turns. I'm a sucker for stark black and white artwork, and Kyle works very effectively here in that style. I can tell you from experience, it's not nearly as easy as he makes it look here. His rendering of the various backgrounds and the creature itself is particularly amazing. He has a really good grasp of storytelling and pacing, as well, using a variety of visual techniques to clearly break up the action. Not a lot of character development, but it's really not that type of story.

So if you're in the mood for a loose, free-wheeling story full of originality... give it a look. I know I enjoyed the heck out of it.