Milo Neuman is a professional storyboard artist, and it shows in his webcomic Dimitra and The Silver Mask. The shadowy, textured images are cunningly arranged to evoke the quiet and subtle movement of a nighttime raid of a walled fortress. Though he is a talented wordsmith, the artist needs no captions to explicate the action— the scene unfolds in an entirely cinematic fashion. Neuman seems to have absorbed influences from action directors like Akira Kurosawa, Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou, and he uses this knowledge well.
The sprawling saga commences at ground level with a bloody battle between soldiers and primitive masked invaders, a spectacle with a cast of thousands. But this earthly combat is in the context of a stellar phenomena, an ominous, vast presence that blots out a patch of the star-field. One of the invaders uses the swipe of a hand to move clouds down to cover the moon, implying levels of supernatural power that are enormous. It plunges the scene into a haunting darkness that strikes terror in the hearts of the soldiers.
Particularly striking is the scene of the slaying of a young soldier who was earlier shown to be rather foolish and talkative. A masked attacker plunges a sword in him, and as the man dies, he seems to perceive and merge with the vast presence in the stars. The reader is left gasping, and confounded as to what it all portends.
Neuman’s storytelling is as excellent as his visual art. The soldiers behave like credible human beings, led by a vainglorious general in an elaborate mock-worthy helmet. The prologue sets a grim philosophical tone— “And so, far away, across the endless sea of stars, a tiny blue world continued to spin on in its ignorance, its kings blinded by the shine of their vestments, its wisemen deafened by profound revelation, and the rest, the masses, occupied by their lot, the sure and constant distraction of Living and Dying.”
