Blue Estate #2: REVIEW
Blue Estate #2
Written by: Viktor Kalvachev
Artwork by: Viktor Kalvachev, Toby Cypress, Nathan Fox, Robert Valley
Publisher: Image Comics
Publication Date: May 04, 2011
List Price: $2.99
Rating: 
While my impression of the first issue of Blue Estate was less than favorable, I still held hopes that this project could result in some interesting storytelling possibilities through the sheer number of artists working on this book. However, after an examination of issue two, I am even less enthusiastic than I was previously for a title I still wasn’t sold on.
The main flaw with issue two, in my estimation, is that there is very little to keep the reader grounded. Last month’s installment introduced us to a snide and sarcastic world of drug dealers, private eyes, mobsters and washed up actors. So much was introduced that very little stuck out in my mind as something to latch onto. For this go around, the elements at play were the ones that certainly flew under the radar for me.
On the whole, I’m not quite clear exactly what the plot of this book is. Tone wise, this segment is far, far different than the first issue. Gone is the everyman focal character of the book, the junior private eye, which knit the first issue together in a more or less cohesive whole. To make my point a bit more succinctly, this issue felt adrift, rudderless and inconsequential to what was introduced in issue one.
The bloated art team, consisting of four artists with one doubling as “art director” and colorist is the book’s main redeeming quality. While each style holds up well enough on its own and is a blend of moody pencils and inks combined with stylistically simple and streamlined compositions, having a uniting colorist muted each artist’s contributions. I sense the intention behind such a large ensemble of artists is to depict different events and settings with a different feel. Yet, a unified color palette sort of defeats this purpose. Maybe if each artist could color his own segment the shift in tone would be more readily felt.
