Read LOVIATHAN at ACT-I-VATE.com

ComicCritique.com
The Eisner-nominated writer-artist Cavallaro, equally at home with arthouse fiction (the atmospheric, deeply-felt family memoir of fascist Italy, Parade With Fireworks) and elevated superhero pulp (J.M. DeMatteis’ Savior 28 ... whose laconic, Sentinels-of-Liberty-ad visuals were rich in history and pop-art wit), is recarving the tablets of romance and action with Loviathan, an immortal-love drama that flashes from ancient Atlantis to a storybook New York. The textured atmospheres of the settings and serrated precision of the animated figurework run an IMAX in your head, and the waves of Stan Lee hyperbole and free-associative poetry crash from opposite ends of the timestream. Part Two at times seems to be replicating its sources rather than perfecting them, but that’s just a knowing slippage into meta-storytelling as the main character King Llyr starts spouting Stan-ish thees and thous while a circle of comrades and soulmates tell his tale, including a little boy with a telepathic link whose crayoned conception of Llyr’s epic showcases Cavallaro’s command of diverse yet harmonious idioms. Loviathan is at the headwaters of new comics classicism.