Echo From Image Comics

In a grab bag (Affiliate Link) comic pack, I was able to get my hands on Echo from Image Comics, issue 0 (actually issue 4). Now the first thing I thought was “what the hell is this?” because there is another Echo comic by Terry Moore, published by Abstract. Instead I will talking about some Manga style comic book published by Image.

Echo from Image Comics has been made by a bunch of Asian people like Long Vo, Ken Siu-Chong and Kidkoum Visarutvanit. And what do you get when you take a bunch of Asian people and have them make some comics? You get manga. Echo is manga for sure.

Echo focuses on holographic technology, and stars a man and a woman who have known each other since being kids. Needless to say, one has feelings for the other secretly. If you have ever seen an anime or read manga, then I’m sure there were similarities, because all these stories are the same to me. Echo from Image comics is no different.

You have been hearing me using words like manga and anime. For those of you not familiar, let me explain. Manga is a Japanese style comic book and Anime is the same thing but animated. Now you may ask what I mean. How can a region hold a single non varying style? Exactly. For some reason, some artists aspire to imitate a strict style rather than develop their own. And when they do, that is called Manga.

Getting back on topic, I had read issue 0 of Echo from Image Comics and I have to say, it is extremely lazy. Don’t get me wrong, the artwork coloring, inking etc looks fantastic. I am also sure it was hard work, however it was incomplete. The main story is something like six double-sided pages, and is so short that it ends before the comic’s staple-fold (less than half the size of the comic). So what does the rest of the comic contain then? Fan art, fan mail, interviews, sketches, and other fluff and padding.

Personally, I cannot recommend this comic. What makes me upset is that people will confuse it with Terry Moore’s Echo, which is a much better comic (affiliate link) … and that comic was created by a single person. If you are a manga person, however, you will probably dig this comic no matter what I say.