‘Strange Skies Over East Berlin’ is Captivating in its Familiarity

Writer: Jeff Loveness / Artist: Lisandro Estherren, Patricio Delpeche / Boom! Studios There is something inherently familiar about Strange Skies Over East Berlin, although maybe it’s a familiarity that stems from my own love of film noir and historic dramas that have been reinterpreted with sci-fi elements. But this familiarity, this inherent understanding that this is during a time that you have almost certainty hear but there is something sinister sneaking beneath the surface…it serves Strange Skies Over East Berlin well. As Loveness’ opening narration, lettered beautifully by Steven Wands, open the first chapter of the volume, everything about the book is telegraphed from the get-go. The bleak colors, the foreboding atmosphere of towering buildings, the shifty look of a man in a trench coat. Without a doubt, Strange Skies Over East Berlin is a brilliantly looking book between Estherren’s pencils and Delpeche’s colors and the story draws you in near immediately with its overwhelming sense of intrigue and mystery.

The basic premise of the novel is that during the Cold War, our protagonist Herring has embedded himself deep into the inner circles of East German intelligence but has become increasingly disillusioned with work for his bosses. However, his latest endeavors is set to challenge him in ways that he could never have expected when a suspect he’s interrogated turns out to be not quite human. And thus the stage is set for this historical fiction with a decidedly sci-…