Babyteeth #1 by onny_Cates">Donny Cates

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



BABYTEETH



Written by:
Donny Cates

Art by:
Garry Brown

Produced by
: Aftershock Comics

Rating:
5/5


Introduction

Sooooo this is the second piece of media I’ve consumed this week about the struggles of being a mother so I’m beginning to realise being a penis wielder has even more benefits then I first thought, one of these benefits being I don’t have to deal with the chance of CONTRACTIONS SENDING EARTHQUAKES THROUGH THE BLOODY WORLD HOLY SHIT! So yeah, now that’s out of the way I’m just gonna gush about how much I love Donny Cates as just by reading this I instantly want to buy every comic he’s ever made! Okay now tangent over so I should proooobably maybe tell you what this issue is about to try and convince you to get it asap and become as engrossed in this developing world as I have. Well conveniently I have been lucky enough to have this synopsis for you right here:

Sadie Ritter is sixteen years old, nine months pregnant, and scared out of her sweet nerdy mind. Having a baby that young is tough, but with the support of her loving family behind her, everything should be okay. OH YEAH, and also her baby is the antichrist and it's going to break open the barriers between the earthly and demonic planes and unleash eternal suffering to all of humankind. Other than that, though...should be fine.

What do you get when you add a rosemary’s baby esque situation (sans disgusting yucky Roman Polanski) + an air of mystery hooking you via an unreliable narrator teasing us with what’s to come, splash that with the terrifying reality of being a pregnant teenager in a world where it is still seen in such a horrible light? You get a one-way ticket to the interest of nearly every comic and horror fanatic. Luckily, I can safely say this debut issue DE-LIV-ERS!!!!


Writing/Characters/themes
I think the opening hooks the reader in so well as instead of some grand double page splash battle or a page of world exploring exposition we focus on our main character and more importantly a mother, a mother who just wants to tell her child she loves him and give him answers. THIS is perfect it goes straight for our hearts and makes us fully root for Sadie Ritter before we even have a slither of her story. This kind of ability is what makes Donny Cates’ writing stand out so much to me, below is an example of what I’m talking about which I will then elaborate on:




JUST HOW ADORABLE BUT SIMULTANIOUSLY HEARTBREAKING CAN ONE PAGE BE?!?! The fact Donny Cates adds the detail of her wanting to give her son the best video possible she takes the time to compose herself as not to scare him and restarts said video because she forgot her little boy doesn’t even know who she is just ugh. It shows us immediately that Sadie is a good person who loves her son and due to the barren environment, we see her in and the fact she’s making this message in the first place implies to us in the first few pages the connection Sadie has with her son is so strong she is willing to risk everything for them.

Following on from this I think the use of the story being told to us through Sadie’s video, incorporating flashbacks, really helps to keep a quick pace with just enough so we are invested in the situation while still naturally skipping over details, like the father’s identity, because people do tell stories in a mixed match way, so it further allows us to have that natural feeling. Following on from this the hints of these glossed over details are an incentive for the reader to continue this series and got me for one very hooked in.

Besides Sadie the only character who I can really think to talk about in this issue is her older sister Sadie, an absolute badass who seems to be involved in illegal activities like the drug trade, even though we don’t find much out about her (I’m sure we will next issue) the fact both her and Sadie have gone down a path it would seem their parents didn’t want them to gives us an interesting idea of what their childhood and relationship with their parents are like particularly considering we see at the end of the issue their father is a military man. These implicit details are what I love about comics nowadays, they treat their readers with the same intelligence one is expected to have when analysing a novel, the fact that this is the case in comics now makes me HOPE the mainstream media doesn’t carry on writing it off as ‘for children’

Finally, when it comes to the writing, I think it’s great that even though this story, I’m sure, will develop into a horrific tale of satanic proportions this issue is full of happiness, humour and above all love. It would have been so so easy to make this some edgy, horrific grungy tale with no real substance *cough* Wanted by Mark Millar *cough*but instead we take the time to have a moment to laugh at little sweet moments like this:




This is just so accurate to what happens all the time and the mix of the truth Sadie is explaining in the video compared to the events in real life make for a very natural little bit of comedy. The main example I wanted to talk about regarding finding the positive, the love and the joy even in the midst of a terrible situation is this line “it means you saved the world in your very first breath.” LIKE ISN’T THAT JUST THE SWEETEST MOTHERLY THING YOU’VE EVER HEARD?!?!? The labour of her baby boy resulted in her bleeding instead of breaking water, her DYING and every time she contracted an earthquake would rupture across the area at a bare minimum of 5.0 on the Richter scale and Sadie instead of seeing that as her son being evil and wrecking destruction looks at the fact all this horror stopped once he was born meaning in her perception Clark saved the world now THAT right there is more than just good writing, that is the ability to encapsulate a mothers love we all want to be enveloped in, the fact Donny Cates can do that in just one issue…beautiful.


Artwork/Colouring/Panel and Lettering Layout

OKOKOK now I can finally gush over some of my favourite panel layouts and interpretation of death I have seen in a comic book for a very veryyyy long time:




The utilisation of two distinct powerful colours, red representing danger and blood and possibly hell considering the red is only below her whereas the white could be a representation of purenes and holiness. Personally I see this as a representation of purgatory inbetween these two colours I see as heaven and hell which yeah just the fact just two colours has that kinda subtext only is just pretty bloody cool if I’m being honest. Also I like the fact the images do line up with the text, sounds like something obvious but you’d be surprised how many times it’s done wrong, you believe that even in a place so different to what we see as reality Sadie in this page, like she says, does feel calm and this space away from literally everything else is almost tranquil in a way because she can just take a second and breathe. I think in all honesty this is my favourite page in the whole issue I just think it’s beautiful and allows the reader to get a really cool interpretation of something no living person can see.



So, on the very next page (as seen above) Garry Brown comes in and gives us the terrifying image of what happens when the red, hell, death whatever the red is, comes to take you away. A tidal wave attacks Sadie which gets bigger and bigger hiding away nearly all the white from the page, but Sadie runs to the white and we get some FANTABULOUS panel layout work as the panels are separated by Sadie’s heartbeat which is getting stronger and stronger the further away from the reds she is towards the light WHICH REPRESENTS HER COMING BACK TO LIFE OMG THIS ISSUE JUST MMMMMMM, I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH!


On a broader point I really like the curvy, loose sketchiness of the issue in the pencil work as it gave the book a more unique almost cartoonish style which isn’t going for realism which is very muchto my taste, as well as that the designs make it easy to 1) differentiate the characters easily and 2) easy to understand what the characters are thinking and feeling duh to the exaggerated body language. You can really tell Heather is a strong intimidating Prescence from the hard, sharp lines on her face whereas Sadie’s face is a lot simpler and less harsh making her have a kind, wholesome look. The inking may be a bit TOO rough for some people but personally I think its fine and even though the colouring for the most part seemed rather uninteresting it was more

Babyteeth #1

By: Donny Cates, Garry Brown

Released: Jun 7, 2017

NEW SERIES! Sadie Ritter is sixteen years old, nine months pregnant, and scared out of her sweet nerdy mind. Having a baby that young is tough, but with the support of her loving family behind her, everything should be okay. OH YEAH, and also her baby is the antichrist and it's going to break open the barriers between the earthly and demonic planes...