In Review – Think Up

By Antony Esmond on October 8, 2014

Written and drawn by Amanda Elanor Tribble

Think Up is a book that mixes the genres of Slice of Life comics with Scanners/Tomorrow People style psychic/political thriller stories. Clem, Victor and Adelaide are psychics of varying experience and abilities who find themselves joining together in a back streets cafe. Clem is new and is cared for by the others, but is soon thrust into areas that both scare and confuse her. It ends on a revelationary twist that I won’t ruin for new readers but it seems to slant it in interesting directions for the future.

It’s a story of personalities and people finding each other but with a strong theme of freedom and revolution, bridging that gap of personal interactions and an Espers-style conspiracy theory.

Playing with personal space and manipulation by stronger minded people, it’s a really interesting small press find that I purchased at the Nottingham Comic Convention.

Creator Amanda Elanor Tribble, an illustrator and comic artist currently studying a degree in Illustration at the University of Lincoln, is hugely enthusiastic about the project, and the book is a really welcome surprise in writing and art. Amanda uses a black and white format and them mixes in purple and the odd dash of red, which she tells me allows her some freedom to work more on the art and not have to worry about a full colour page. It really works well. These flashes of red are used both as part of the art and as a visual indicator for the hierarchy in the political group.

A psychic power has always been a story choice that even the best artists have struggled with, yet, as a newcomer Amanda finds a neat solution that really works. Words are allowed to dance and flow across and through panels. It’s a nice effect that really works well. There are also wordless sequences that are as explanatory as any of the dialogue. The moment that a whole crowd are influenced by one of the psychics is paced to perfection.

The story opens like an indie book then moves up and off to the left. You have to keep your eye on story beats and it drags you in with detail that as a reader had me hooked. As the story progresses you begin to realise that there is much more going on in the background. It turns you around and gets you thinking. Genuinely a really pleasant surprise.

It does however leave you hanging. After putting the book down I’m not sure if this is a clever one shot or the start of an intriguing saga. Only time will tell I suppose.

You can find Amanda at www.paintedlunacy.co.uk or on Twitter @yunmin. You can buy her books over at www.comicsy.co.uk/paintedlunacy

Thanks for reading.