Adamtine [Paperback]

I so like this book for several reasons: The plot and the handling of it, the dialogue, the strong atmosphere, and the thoroughly deft and appropriate art-work.

A few people are on the last night train out of London. The carriage(s) they are in suddenly and without explanation stop moving and it gradually dawns upon the passengers that this is not the result an obstruction on the track or BR incompetence but of something altogether different. Their journey has become one into high strangeness.

Glimpses of back-stories of these passengers are offered, and with them hints of the reason that this might be happening to these particular people. And really I don't think I can say much else about the plot without revealing what a reader would better find for himself, or without giving my own interpretation of the book's ambiguities. I re-read the book immediately after finishing it partly because I'd been so tense (rather frightened, actually) on first reading that I'd gallopped through without giving the art the attention it deserves, and when I did so I found that many things that seemed out-of-place or utterly confusing the first time had been explained later in the story.

And the art is very fetching and very effective. The second time around I studied each panel, and many of them are gems. (As well, the free approach to panel boundaries, like the changes in viewpoint and in focus are well-considered.) I'm especially taken with Berry's feeling for light and darkness: a wash, I think, that tells us that a kitchen is on the north side of a house, the treatment of a mobile's screen shining through a layer of paper, the depiction of a carriage's lighted interior seen from outside on a starless night. Berry's skilful drawings are probably the main element in the book's atmosphere and creepiness.

In fact, I don't think the story would have been so strong had it been told with text only; it would in other hands and in conventional form probably have lost much subtlety and dengenerated into a standard thriller-like horror story. This really should appeal to anyone who relishes the odd, the unexplained, and a search for clues, and not only to people who are used to reading graphic novels.

Took me a couple of readings to get it, but it wasn't a chore as the artwork is great. I would recommend.

I'd never heard of Adamtine or its authour before, but thought it looked at least worth a glance.
It was so compelling, I read it within about a half-hour non-stop. There's something about Berry's style, graphically and literally, that hearkens back to some of my favourite British indie comic talents of the 90s, so maybe that makes this more a winner for me personally. However, the story is a quiet, faintly chilling one reminiscent of the original Twilight Zone at its creepiest, but with a very modern edge. Even the ending, though unsatisfying from a what-the-hell-is-going-on-here standpoint, fits perfectly to the tone of the story. Dark and disturbing and utterly involving.
I don't often give books 5 stars, and it's been a long time since I read a totally new-to-me comic that just blew me away, but this one did. I've read it three times already, and I'll probably read it again tomorrow.