Demon Prince: Children of Gaia 2008 (SC GNs) vol. 1 (184 pages) and vol. 2 (146 pages)
Written by Dil. Illustrated by Philip Knott and Ng Keng Yeow, with Yap Yin Thing.
black and white. Letters/editor: Dips
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Written by Dil. Illustrated by Philip Knott and Ng Keng Yeow, with Yap Yin Thing. Demon Prince: Children of Gaia 2008 (SC GNs)
vol. 1 (184 pages) and vol. 2 (146 pages)
black and white. Letters/editor: Dips
Rating: * 1/2 (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Published by Dimensional Manga
Demon Prince: Children of Gaia is a new graphic novel series from a new publisher, Dimensional Manga. Though a western (specifically British) publisher, it is fully meant to emulate the Japanese Manga, from the Japanese/Asian style art (a kind of angular cartooniness, with lots of big eyes and shocks of hair), to the presentation (read back to front, right to left -- as the Japanese do), to the format of being almost digest-sized, in black and white, and with a thick page count as opposed to being just a 32 page comic.
I was kindly sent a copies of the first two volumes (of a proposed multi-volume saga) by the publisher and I'd really like to be able to do a comprehensive review of it. But I can't. And that's because one word that sums it up is: incoherent. I can't really do an in depth review...because I'm not really sure what I read.
To be fair, I'm not that familiar with Manga, the largely Japanese version of comic books which have become quite trendy among western comic fans. I've read a few -- such as the classic wartime bio-drama, Barefoot Gen, as well as a few less "pure", more Americanized versions of the style. I say this, because it could be that someone more familiar with this off shoot of comics would find Demon Prince less disorienting.
But I don't think so.
Comics are kind of an unusual art form in that the line between professional and non-professional can be a bit vague. In books the idea of self-published is seen as somewhat disreputable, the notion being that there's no quality control if you aren't being vetted by an editor (though self-published works are certainly becoming more and more pervasive as new technologies make it easier -- and cheaper -- for people to publish on their own). But in comics, self-published comics actually garner more respect, often seen as the mark of the rebel, unwilling to compromise to a corporate publisher. I bring this up because this is written and created by Dimensional Manga's Chief Executive Officer. So is this a new publisher emerging on the field...or a self-published indy comic?
And if the latter, it maybe was in serious need of some objective editor/overseer to help shape the material.
The premise -- again, I keep getting blocked. Okay, it's sort of set in a kind of medieval, fantasy milieu -- I think. And there's some good guys, and some bad guys, and, and...
The problems are multiple. For one thing, the story seems to involve a lot of cutting between past and present and with a few dream sequences and memories thrown in -- making for choppy narrative to begin with. But none of it is very clearly explained or articulated -- even the back cover text description is kind of confusing -- and vague. I really wasn't sure who was who or what or why, with characters popping into scenes with little explanation. The art is okay in spots, and certainly captures the whole manga flavour -- but it too suffers from basic problems in storytelling fundamentals, where a penchant for close ups (or, alternately, extreme long shots) often makes it hard to tell who's in a scene or the characters' positions to each other. And the character designs are also non-descript -- a problem with the way manga art can be a little too formulaic. The result is not only could I not tell who was who from scene to scene -- but even within a scene. It was sometimes even hard with the dialogue balloons to tell who was supposed to be speaking. And the dialogue itself often seems...awkward. As if poorly translated from another language -- but I don't think it was.
Volume two in the series contains a sequence where a character recaps a sequence from the first volume. And here, with the more expository narration, it actually makes that earlier sequence a little clearer. But only a little.
The saga wants to be a mix of influences, from a super power/action series -- with looong, rather violent, confusingly staged action scenes -- to a comedy with humour ranging from quirky to slapstick to surreal (despite its quasi-medieval setting, at one point a character brandishes a magic marker) -- to a seeming pretention to mystical/philosophical undercurrent which, like everything else, I couldn't make much sense of (despite big sections being devoted to explaining it). There are even cartoony panda bears that crop up periodically -- but to no discernable effect/reason I could see, save as maybe an attempt to try and find a signature, cuddly icon, ala Pokemon's Pikachu.
One can believe that the creators knew what was going on -- which is almost the problem. They maybe knew it so well, they forgot they had to articulate it for their readers. Even then, there's a lot of vagueness, as if they hadn't really worked out some of the mundane minutia that you need to build a story -- and the reality in which your story is set. As mentioned, there's a kind of vagueness as to the time period (swords...and baseball caps). At one point two characters, who are some kind of monk/sensei, recruit an apprentice...but it's not clear how or from where (is there a village nearby? is the kid an orphan?)
Reading Demon Prince: Children of Gaia -- or, at least, struggling to get through it -- you can believe the creators were having a ball, and that maybe the comics' lack of coherence is because they were trying too hard to pay homage to various, disparate inspirations. And, ironically, the very things I criticize might well be precisely what they want: some of the promotional comments for the series claim it will "challenge" the "average" reader, and present "never before seen concepts", and the very name of the company "Dimensional Manga" seems to relate to their feeling that they're presenting -- even creating -- a whole new, multi-dimensional form of storytelling. But there's a fine line between ambition...and hubris.
Although there's also a seeming mercenary bent, as a chunk of pages at the back of each book is given over to ads for artwork they're selling and the like. I've seen too many comics from new (usually short lived) companies over the years where they seem to put the merchandising ahead of the comic itself, hoping to create a franchise before they've created the core work itself -- when the merchandising should come (if at all) only after the work has proven itself.
As I mentioned near the beginning -- I'm not that familiar with Manga comics. Maybe some of the disjointed and confusing style is par for the course (certainly I think I've seen some Japanese anime that can seem a bit loose with narrative logic). But, as is obvious, I can only review this from my perspective. And my perspective is I read some 300 pages (over two volumes) and found I had little idea what was going on or why. Cover price: $__ CDN./ $11.99 USA (each)
Desperadoes:
Epidemic! 1999 (SC GN) 48
pages
Written by Jeff Mariotte. Illustrated by John Lucas (layouts:
John Lucas, John Cassaday).
Colours: Nick Bell. Letters: Gene Doney. Editor: John Layman.
Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Published by Homage Comics / DC Comics
Set in the days of the Wild West, Desperadoes features a quartet of heroes whose gun slinging exploits tend also to involve a dollop of the supernatural. Created by Jeff Mariotte and John Cassaday, they've appeared in at least a couple of mini-series (at least one of which has been collected in a TPB), and this one-shot graphic novel.
The plot has our heroes, pursued by a posse, arriving in a quarantined town in mid-winter that's suffering from a flu epidemic. They stick around, helping out as best they can...and, eventually, a supernatural evil rears its ugly head.
It's bad enough when monthly comics provide very little introduction for the novice reader, but when you have a "series" that appears only irregularly in, ostensibly, self-contained stories (mini-series, graphic novels), it might behoove the creators to provide some background. But here it's not really clear who or what the heroes are, or how they came to hang out together. The title -- Desperadoes -- allows one to infer they're outlaws of some kind, and the fact that they are being pursued by a Sheriff re-inforces this. But otherwise they deport themselves properly, and when discovering the town is quarantined, happily do their civic duty; it's not clear how they make a living, actually. We are told the Sheriff is hunting them because they "accidentally" killed his wife...but no explanation is given for how this happened.
A great deal of the story is concerned more with character than action and adventure -- without the characters being that well-defined. Sure, leader Gideon Brood is obviously a battle scarred middle-age guy, and Race Kennedy is the well-tailored easterner; Jerome Alexander Betts is perhaps most clearly defined simply as "the black guy"; and while narrator Abby DeGrazia is, in some respects, the main character, she's not especially well delineated. The character stuff doesn't really go much of anywhere, anyway. Partly my objection can be laid at the feet of the story's format: the graphic novel. If this was one or two issues of an on-going title, it might not seem so strange. But presented as it is, you expect a little more detail to who and what these people are.
The plot is pretty basic. Characters are thrown in, then nothing is done with them -- the heroes are befriended by a boy...who then dies from the flu a couple of pages later. Abby romances a local doctor...but he isn't given much personality.
The supernatural threat only starts being introduced about half-way through, and when finally confronted, proves anti-climactic. Always a fan of larger-than-life fantasy and SF, normally I'd approve of mixing the western milieu with fantasy elements. But precisely because it takes so long to show up, it felt frankly intrusive and tacked on. Like the story might've worked better as a straight western story (since there aren't too many of those in comics these days).
Then again, the problem is that I never quite felt the period milieu was entirely evoked as well as it could be. In his afterward, writer Jeff Mariotte puts a big emphasis on the flu aspect of the story and its historical precedents. And yet, for all that the story takes place in a quarantined town, and we are treated to frequent landscapes dotted with grave markers, there's little actualization of the illness -- I'm not sure anyone even coughs once in the story. Nor is there any sense the heroes are unduly concerned about being trapped in a town being decimated by a plague.
The art may be part of the source of my ambivalence. Though co-created by John Cassaday -- an artist with a detailed, realist style (and who provides some lay-outs) -- the actual drawing is done by John Lucas. Though Lucas has a bold, confident style, it also tends toward rudimentary, even a little cartoony. Sure, he draws cowboy hats and stables, but without much detail. He doesn't generate the kind of necessary reality that would really transport you back a hundred and some years (the way I remember some of DC Comics' 1970s western comics like Jonah Hex managing to do). Another Desperadoes mini-series (and TPB) was drawn by the great John Severin, and I'm guessing that would evoke the period better.
Ultimately, I'm hard pressed to know what to say about Desperadoes: Epidemic! It's not terrible, certainly, and might work better a second time through. But as a western, it didn't quite evoke the period the way I hoped it would; as a supernatural thriller it was thin; and as a character drama -- at least for someone unfamiliar with these characters -- I didn't really feel I got to know them mmuch by the end.
Cover price: $9.25 CDN./ $5.95 USA.
Devi, vol. 1: Namaha 2006 (SC TPB) 144 pages
Written by Siddharth Kotian, Samit Basu (created by Shekhar Kapur). Illustrated by Mukesh Singh.
Colours: Nanjan J. Letters: Ravikiran B.S., Nilesh S. Mahadik. Editors: MacKenzie Cadenhead, Mahesh Kamath.
Additional notes: production sketches, etc.
Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Published by Virgin Comics
Set in modern India, Devi concerns a young woman, Tara Mehta, who unbeknownst to herself has been selected by the Gods (a non-denominational, mythical pantheon) to become the next Devi -- a god-like warrior in the battle against darkness. A fact that those same forces of darkness wish to prevent.
Virgin Comics jumped into the comics market both with the gimmick of attaching to their projects brand name creators that aren't usually associated with comics -- filmmakers like Shekhar Kapur or philosopher/gurus like Deepak Chopra or, um, pornstars like Jenna Jameson -- and, for many of their comics, deliberately seeking out an Indian flavour/vibe. I don't believe these are Indian comics per se -- Virgin is a western, Anglo-American company and these are projects original to it -- but some of the creators are Indian and, supposedly, drawing upon a unique Indian sensibility.
I say "supposedly"...because what emerges from this collection of the first five issues of Devi is a really pretty familiar concept, with obvious echoes of Witchblade or Buffy the Vampire Slayer in its notion of an ordinary women suddenly dragged into a supernatural conflict as the current inheritor of an ancient power. (Subsequently there was even a Devi/Witchblade team up one-shot!)
Most stories are familiar at their core -- it's in the details and the telling that they are made fresh. Unfortunately, Devi offers very little of those, either.
First off: the good parts.
Front and centre is the art by Mukesh Singh. This is apparently among his first comics work (after an illustrative background in production design, games, animation, etc.) and he pretty well hits it out of the park first time. Not only is he an exceptionally good artist, good at both people (including the obligator beautiful women and hunky men) and breathtakingly detailed backgrounds, but he can also shift to suit the various tones of the series, from the supernatural to the urban streets, the grim and horrific, to lighter bits. As well, he has a solid eye for composition, for developing a scene through pictures. Of course credit must also be given to colourist Nanjan J.for settling on the right hues.
And the writers are certainly capable of delivering decent scenes and pacing, the occasional cute quip. It's all perfectly agreeable.
The opening sequence, set millennia ago, depicting the gods' first battle with the comics' arch fiend, the Lucifer-like Bala, is particularly striking, both visually and in its sense of evoking a mythological tone, like old Thor comics or Kirby's New Gods. When the action jumps to modern times, you can feel a bit of a let down.
Comics with heroines often come under criticism for their sexploitive visuals. There's some of that: a villainess here wears a cleavage baring shirt, and in the opening sequence, the original Devi's costume seems to amount to no more than tendrils of flame that lick about her nude body, covering only the essentials. But...when Tara finally appears in costume, it's a far more demure outfit (awww, shucks). And though Singh draws beautiful women -- they aren't ridiculously proportioned. And though the violence is, occasionally, a bit gorier than it needs to be, in general they seem to be going for a decidedly mainstream, general readership tone.
But you reach the end of these five issues and still find yourself completely undecided if the comic is worth reading. For all the running about and action and machinations (mainly villains double crossing each other), this seems barely more than an introduction. In fact, Tara doesn't even appear till midway through the second issue, and barely has any lines after that. At least, in so far as we get much of a sense for her as a person. While at one point a good guy cop even self-describes himself as a "cliche"!
The plot is vaguely presented. We first meet the cop chasing a suspect who turns into a demon-vampire thing -- except we aren't actually told why he had been chasing the guy in the first place! Or one of the villains has ingratiated himself with Tara as her boyfriend...but he didn't modify himself in any way to seduce her (in other words, if she didn't have a thing for gangsters, his plan would've been a bust).
For all the creative "vision" that Virgin Comics is selling itself as having, one can't help but suspect the problem is that of a story by committee -- with filmmaker Kapur's name featured prominently on the cover, and two writers over five issues, one can imagine there were too many people involved...but not enough people committed to it. Or maybe the fact that the "visionaries" are drawn from other mediums means they didn't realize how familiar this all might seem to comic book and fantasy fiction fans in general.
And it doesn't really seem any different than any American comic. Oh, there's some background touches, by-standers in saris or turbans, occasional bits of Indian slang (dutifully translated) and a scene where a religious procession, complete with elephant, blocks traffic -- not exactly something Spider-Man usually encounters. But the main characters all seem to act and dress in a western way, and you don't really get a sense of Indian's complex stew of cultures and peoples -- the series is even set in a fictional city, Sitapur. And, hey, maybe that just goes to show what we all know deep inside -- people are the same all over.
And, as I've noted in other comics featuring non-white characters, the characters seem oddly light-skinned.
Ultimately it's not that I hated, or even disliked Devi -- it can be an agreeabale, breezy page turner. I just found it hard to get that interested in it one way or the other.
Perhaps they'd claim they've got some grand, epic tale to unfold, and they're just taking their time doing it. But ultimately, there's only so much a reader can take on faith. This represents five issues (half a year of publishing) and we're still left with next to no insight into the characters (or why we should care about them) -- or of any master plan (or why we should be intrigued by where it's headed). Although these first five issues do form a semi-arc, it's still just part of the on going narrative. So there's not even much sense of whether the writers can deliver on a plot: beginning, middle and end. And little indication they are capable of offering up some fresh twists on old cliches.
This is a review of the story as it was originally serialized in the comics.
Cover price: $__ CDN./$14.99 USA.
Devi, vol. 2 2007 (SC TPB) 144 pages
Written by Samit Basu. Illustrated by Aditya Chari, Saumin Patel.
Colours: Nanjan J. with N. Sivakami. Letters: various. Editors: Mackenzie Cadenhead, Mahesh Kamath.
Reprinting: Devi #6-10
Rating: * * (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Suggested (mildly) for mature readers
Published by Virgin Comics
This is the second volume of Virgin Comics' Devi series, about a young woman in the (fictional) Indian city of Sitapur who finds herself imbued with the power and life force of the Devi, an ancient demi-goddess created by the gods to fight evil. The first five issue arc introduced the concept, setting up the situation of the devil-like entity, Balal and his minions operating in modern day Sitapur and heroine Tara Mehta's conversion into the Devi.
This picks up from there. Balal and his agents are seeking the Source -- an ancient power hidden somewhere in the city that, if Balal acquires it, will give him dominion not only of the world, but even his fellow gods. Something the other gods don't want, and what they want the Devi to prevent. But unlike previous versions of the Devi, where the goddess inhabited a dead mortal, Tara is still very much alive and a very reluctant heroine.
Reading the first Devi TPB (and knowing how modern comics like to just create rambling story arcs) it wasn't really clear if there was any specific arc being developed. So it was interesting reading this second TPB to realize that it does build to a climax of a kind, meaning the first ten issues of the on going series do form a story. Also in my review of the first TPB I basically remarked that I didn't really dislike Devi, but there was little about it to excite interest in it, either. With that ambivalence in mind (and with these subsequent issues in the cheap boxes) I decided to give the series another chance at winning me over.
Unfortunately, it didn't.
On the plus side, as mentioned, this does build to a resolution of the inaugural story arc, with a climactic issue that does feel like a climax.
On the minus side...
Well, basically this continues the theme of the first volume, in that it's trying to milk a lot of mileage out of the sense of machinations and various factions at odd with each other as we cut to various players each pursuing their own agenda. Which might be good. Except it means that, therefore, the bad guys seem to occupy the majority of the page count as a lot of time is just spent cutting to various villains -- and villains who often aren't pursuing separate agendas, so much as they just think they are (as one bad guy remarks to another in exasperation: "will you never trust me?") There's a lot of talking heads in these issues...which, again, should be good. But ultimately...the plotting remains rather thin, as we basically just cut to the same characters having the same conversations over and over again. And despite all the verbiage, the characterization remains rather minimal.
Devi/Tara herself remains a kind of blandly defined heroine/personality.
And the action scenes are basically just, well, action scenes, as opposed to intriguingly choreographed battles that generate suspense and tension. That's part of the problem with a generically powered heroine who's super strong and can zap things...it's not like she's got some simple, finite power that she has to figure out how to employ against her foes in novel ways.
A big plus of the first five issues was the art by Mukesh Singh. Unfortunately, he's moved on, and his replacements are less impressive. Aditya Chari is okay, but his figure work is rather stiff. While Saumin Patel struck me as even more problematic, his simple, cartoony style not even seeming particularly professional. Though I wonder if it might be a deliberate art style, as it reminded me -- vaguely -- of ancient Indian art, like the kind you might see on a temple wall or illustrating a scroll, as though it was a deliberate stylistic choice for this series about Indian deities. But if so, it's still not that appealing aesthetically. And the composition itself is problematic, particularly in the action scenes (reading over the climactic fight, I kept wondering if the order of the panels somehow got messed up -- or panels left out entirely!) Patel's art is also pretty gory in spots, pushing this towards a "mature readers" category.
Although one writer remains at the helm for this run of issues, I still can't help wonder if part of the fault lies with the whole editorial philosophy behind Virgin Comics. It's a company that jumped into the biz, promoting itself as visionary and creatively driven...but overall seems just kind of crassly mercenary, launching a bunch of titles with glossy covers and all the promotion money can buy and series by "name" creators...who didn't actually write the darn things (here, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur). It smacks of comics by a committee of business men rather than by a circle of comics creators -- or at least, dilettantes who want to play at being comics creators, without having to do the heavy lifting. The fact that recently (just a year or two after the company started) there are already rumours it's in trouble, isn't really surprising.
Heck, the fact that the mysterious power source the characters are hunting for is called...The Source, seems a bit like no one was exactly knocking themselves out with creativity.
The first Devi volume left me on the fence...not really excited, but willing to concede it could get better. But this second volume just seems to tip me off the fence, with repetitive plotting and characterization that still fails to rise above generic, a heroine that never manages to command centre stage, and not even being visually arresting.
This is a review of the story as it was originally serialized in the comics.
Cover price: $__ CDN./$14.99 USA.
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