In Review: Newbury & Hobbes #2

Synopsis: Something foul lurks in London’s sewers, and our detective duo are dragged to its heart.

Review: Titan Comics unleash the second issue of the new Newbury & Hobbes investigation, which takes on a very strange turn as we learn that an old enemy is still alive.

The Story

Picking things up from where the last issue left off. Newbury and Hobbes along with Sir Charles Bainbridge and a few other friends continue their investigation of an old laboratory, which once belonged to the evil scientist Aubrey Knox.

While investigation the site. They are set upon by one of Knox’s monsters, which was once a human being.

Meanwhile, at Scotland Yard, the police are trying to figure out who is behind the clockwork men, which explodes in the last issue and receive a mysterious note.

The Artwork

Dan Boultwood’s artwork in this issue is fantastic to look at. I love some of the designs he has done with the various page layouts. And how the various panels form interesting shapes and patterns, which kind of look like old Victorian lights.

I loved the series of panels set in the sewers where Knox’s monsters had built there community and set up very basic buildings to live in.

The panels set in the jail cell where Newbury and Hobbes plot their escape were also good fun.

Overall

Being a newcomer to this world. I’m still getting to know the characters, but enjoying every moment of that process. It’s fair to say that I love the steampunk style of the art and the storytelling involved here and the characters are really likable.

George Mann does a great job with the dialogue and the interpersonal exchanges between the various characters. I especially enjoyed the build-up he created for the characters as they planed their daring jailbreak. And I also enjoyed the cliffhanger that this issue leaves off on and what it reveals to the heroic Newbury and Hobbes, but what will it mean as the story moves on in next months installment. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.