MICHAEL MACLEOD and KEVIN MENZ

Riley Rossmo freezes a moment from Bedlam in detailed kinetic illustration.

The local artist, who grew up in Saskatoon and now lives in Calgary, currently has a small exhibit showing at Unreal City comic store in downtown Saskatoon.

The exhibit consists of large illustrations from many of Rossmo’s previous works, including Rebel Blood, Wild Children and Daken: Dark Wolverine, as well as a few unpublished works from Rossmo’s upcoming projects.

The pieces highlight Rossmo’s highly kinetic style, which emphasizes movement in static images and which gives life to the figures he draws.

His use of colour is interesting; the images are nearly monochromatic, with bright splashes of colour that highlight and draw focus to important areas of his work.

His most recent series, Bedlam, launched its first issue in late October. Three pieces from the comic are on display at Unreal City.

The Image Comics series, written by Nick Spencer, follows Fillmore Press, a reformed serial killer who faked his own death 10 years earlier to escape police. When the town of Bedlam is hit with a series of murders, Press and his former self, the Madder Red, might be the only ones able to help.

The comic jumps back and forth between the present-day Press and memories of his time as the serial killer Madder Red, memories that Press struggles to reconcile with his current peaceful identity.

Rossmo’s work in the comic exemplifies how well he uses colour to set mood and, according to Bleeding Cool blog, it is “a perfect companion to Spencer’s script.”

“He excels… with the flashbacks to Red’s final arrest rendered in scratchy, feverish black and white with red as the only accent colour,” reviewer Alasdair Stuart writes. “In contrast, the present day is sickly green, the colour of headaches and food poisoning, aside from Madder Red, who Fillmore sees every time in the mirror; monochrome, perfect, always smiling with the spray-painted teeth of a human shark.”

“Saskatoon has an amazing pool of talent,” Unreal City owner Theo Kivol said, adding that the store’s exhibits are meant “to spotlight professional comic artists and local talent whose works would never be shown in a conventional gallery space.

“We hope to inspire people to work on their own material and show that successful comic artists can come from anywhere.”

Rossmo graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2004. The second edition of Bedlam will be released Nov. 28.

His exhibit will run until January and will be succeeded by South African-turned-Saskatchewan resident Linsey Levendall’s artwork.

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Photo: Supplied