Shannon Maer is a well respected artist, known for creating very popular covers for Dynamite and Marvel. They tend to feature leading ladies, looking beautiful; sexualised, but nothing out of the norm for comic books. After seeing one though, it can feel like you have seen them all, but the appeal is understandable to the average comic reader.
Maer also created a five issue series called Siren’s Gate, where he was artist, writer and letterer, under Dynamite. This was Maer’s first foray into writing his own series and the result could fairly be considered to be mixed.
The story is light to say the least. We follow Tara, who works at a strip club, who gets randomly requested to meet her favourite author, the mysterious Lady Rose. A world of vampires, werewolves and shadowy organisations awaits her as she discovers her hidden powers.
The problem with the story is a lot of it just feels disconnected. There are a few narrative jumps, like after Tara is attacked by a werewolf and saved by Lady Rose’s assistant. We then next see them outside the strip club where Tara then just says that the assistant is a vampire. There is not any build-up to this, or hint that perhaps he could be a vampire like fangs. Instead we are just told this is the case.
Similarly, the mysterious Lady Rose shows the characters some scrolls which are written by the ‘ancients’. She does not say they were written by my people or by ancient Egyptians, but one character immediately deduces from this that she must be Cleopatra. Again, we are just told things.
This was a five issue series, so you could assume that perhaps there was not enough space to flesh out the world or story as much as Maer would have liked, but it feels the complete opposite. A whole page is dedicated to the strip club door or another three to a woman falling off a ladder, the action pausing so you get to see her underwear. If anything Maer had the time and space but not the ideas to make a compelling or interesting story.
Everything just feels very stiff. The dialogue feels very generic and it is hard to connect to any of them. Apart from a very awkward self-insertion from Maer, the story is incredibly forgettable, which is an unforgivable sin in fiction.
There are errors as well, such as where Maer writes ‘close’ instead of ‘clothes’; a minor thing, but it distracts from any immersion (and odd given it had an editor and a ‘producer’). Other immersion breakers details like everyone seems to walk around in very little clothing in the rain, seemingly unaffected by it.
All of this might seem a bit unfair, especially as Maer is an artist, with this his first published story. However, the artwork lets the series down as well. There is a visible decline in quality as the issues go on, which can no doubt be ascribed to how difficult it can be to meet deadlines, particularly when painting the series. The first issues are smooth, laying out a clear visual identity, but it gets rougher as the issues progress.
Like the dialogue and story, it all feels very wooden. Every scene feels static, devoid of life and movement. Similar to the story, it’s quite light in detail, with backgrounds left murky in an attempt to create atmosphere. Instead it feels more like a half-finished project at times.
Finally, it is worth bringing up Maer’s portrayal of women here. Given his fame for creating sexy covers, it is no surprise that women feature prominently here; all the female characters, both hero and villain, presented as beautiful women. The attraction between Lady Rose and Tara feels forced, rather than a positive portrayal of a gay romance.
Where it falls apart though is again with how lifeless the characters feel and appear. There is always a place for sex in comics, however the dead eyes here make characters feel as sexy as a blow-up doll. Everything feels artificial.
In fact, it feels like you are reading stills from an RPG or a Sims expansion pack. How figures hold themselves and their stances all feel very unnatural, like that you would see from an NPC.
Maer has a lot of talent, that much is clear. Not every project by any artist or writer is a success, but this one is a miss. Maer can hopefully learn and build from this. If he decides to dip his toe back into creating a whole story himself, then surely it can only improve.
Key Comics Vault 
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