The Grey #3 is a comic written by Toshi J. with art by Tiger Salmon. Shameka worries that her superiors view her as a suspect in the recent break-in. This is a science fiction comic with boardroom drama and shady business dealings. The leading lady here is Shameka Day, she is a scientist who has made a breakthrough involving black holes and particle accelerators and is now trying to prevent her work from falling into the hands of the military. This story begins Shameka heading into work and quickly being called into her boss’ office. There she is notified of the break-in and she is told that there were backups to most of the destroyed files but some are incomplete. They also tell her that there are some leads on who might have done this. There isn’t any violence here. The pacing is steady and the tone is like that of an inter-office drama. There are some dramatically intense and somewhat stressful moments. The dialogue is conversational and Shameka likes to talk to herself. There are no word-heavy pages here. This is an interesting installment that focuses on the drama as this leading lady must find a way to avoid being discovered as the culprit behind the break-in.

            The art here is drawn in a detailed, almost oil painting-like style with a focus on lighting. It looks like the coloring was done with watercolors and the range is realistic for an office environment. There are some trees placed around the office that serve as the only natural scenery. The main location is the building where Shemeka works and a variety of rooms are visited including the boardroom, private offices, and a cafeteria with a transparent dome. The backgrounds usually show the immediate surroundings but they tend to be a monochrome color which draws your focus to the characters. The expression level here is a bit above average as Shemeka struggles to hide how she really feels. Emotions here include fear, shock, stress, sternness, and some happiness. The faces have an overall high amount of details and they show the different looks very clearly. There isn’t any violence, blood, gore, or action here.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes, if this is up your alley.

“Would I like this?”

If you like science fiction office drama stories that star a black woman and deal with new technology and shadiness behind the scenes then this is for you.

“What would this comic’s film rating be?”

PG.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

 

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/midnightcomics/the-grey-issues-1-3/description

***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 22

Violent Pages: 0, for 0% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 0, for 0% of the comic

 

**The levels below aren’t necessarily maintained throughout the whole comic, but they were definitely reached**

 

Violence Level – 1

“Wasn’t no tussling at all.”

“Sometimes you gotta hit somebody.”

“I’m getting charged with how many counts of assault?”

“This was a tournament arc.”

“All my life I had to fight.”

 

Gore Level – 1

“The only thing leaking out your face is tears.”

“Looks like somebody spilled some ketchup.”

“Might need to soak that up with a bath towel.”

“That isn’t supposed to be outside the body.”

“This is a slaughterhouse.”

 

Death Level – 1

“And everybody lived happily ever after.”

“We might have gone to a couple funerals.”

“It just LOOKS like a serial killer was here.”

“Yeah this was a tragedy.”

“Think Gettysburg.”

 

Porn Level – 1

“Everybody kept their clothes on.”

“I guess it was too hot for a bra.”

“Sometimes you got to let everything air out.”

“This is like late night Cinemax in the early 2000’s.”

“Oh. This is porn.”