Ben Templesmith has made a name for himself in the comic book industry
and horror/gothic art scene after his consistently excellent Wormwood:
Gentleman Corpse – imagine if Warren Ellis wrote B.P.R.D. – as well as
30 Days of Night, Dead Space, Welcome to Hoxford, and more. With the
exception of said video game prequel, however, Templesmith has never
worked much outside of the fantasy-horror genre. Groom Lake appears to
be the first time that Templesmith has worked on this shade of
science-fiction.

His style lends itself fairly well. Then again, Templesmith is a man of
several styles and most assuredly can adapt to whatever the script
calls for. His signature use of reds and shadows are nowhere near as
prevalent as they are in, say, Wormwood. Rather, his color palette
stays pretty consistently cool – lots of blues and greens – most likely
to reflect the cold, dark nature of the story’s theme. However, his
warm colors are used with horrific precision, using them just in the
right places to emphasize scenes filled with chills and thrills.

Those scenes, unfortunately, are few and far between. I’m not near as
familiar with Chris Ryall as I am with Templesmith, and I wonder if I
should even attempt to be. I don’t blame him for a plot that sounds all
too familiar – a secret government agency (based in New Mexico, of
course,) dealing with extraterrestrial activity, most likely for their
own, equally-horrifying agenda – but the characters within the story
seem a bit off. The friendly gray man talks like some Japanese
game-show host, and the two prominent hillbillies seem a bit overly
inarticulate. In fact, the only character I’ve enjoyed reading so far
is Agent Pope, which I guess was what Ryall was hoping for at best, so
there you go.

I wonder if this book would’ve been any different if Templesmith had
also been writing the book. I suppose you can only do so much for an
archetypal science-fiction plot such as this. Still, I’m curious as to
what Templesmith has in store for future visuals, so I guess you can
consider me abducted.