Fear Itself Sketchbook

A freebie I picked up at a comic shop earlier this year.

Title: Fear Itself Sketchbook
Date: 2011
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: James Viscardi, Hunter Gorinson
Designer: Jeff Suter
Editor: Arune Singh

Introductory freebie for the current Fear Itself storyline. In spite of having some sizable blocks of text, this book really doesn't give away all that much about what the plot of Fear Itself is. We are told that it has to do with the Norse god of fear (was he the guy who kinda functioned as a (bad) male version of Hit Girl during the Siege crossover?).

Anyway, Norse mythology is involved and there will be global chaos. And it will be different from the global chaos that occurred during Civil War, Siege, World War Hulk, or Secret Invasion (or even Acts of Vengeance, although Loki was behind that one, so maybe there's a connection).

The full color center spread is nice, although it appears to mostly show a bunch of superheroes holding a press conference, so it's not exactly the most exciting moment in the series. The dialogue is redacted, so it's really just a whole bunch of capes standing around. They look good, and there are lots of them, but that doesn't change the fact that they're just standing there.

Most of the other sample art is reduced to fit 3-4 full original pages onto a single page of this book. Coupled with it being in sketch form and lacking dialogue, this makes it very difficult to make out much of what is happening in any of it. I did like the full-page sketch of Skadi (formerly Sin, daughter of the Red Skull), and the teasers on the last two pages contain some interesting insights into the greatest fears of some of the superheroes.

This was released back in the spring, and the storyline is now in full swing. I flipped through the most recent issue in a comic shop today (didn't actually buy or read it, so no review), and it did look pretty good. Unfortunately, this freebie does not do that great a job of selling the product.

Rating: 4/10