Title: Sancho Publisher: 20000 Leagues Writer: Ian Whelen and Alan Nolan Artists: Alan Nolan
Relevant Websites: Publishers website – http://www.20000-leagues.com – Well designed website, but a little lacking in information. Provides sample pages of Sancho and purchasing information, but little else.
Issues read: Issue #1 – Sancho’s Last Case
Summary: After a lifetime of fighting the forces of evil in its many forms, Father Sancho has to return to the fold to solve the mystery of his former mentors missing head. Trouble with demons and the dark arts follow…
Presentation: Very nice design and presentation. Good quality paper in a traditional comics format.
Where to buy it: Online from the above link, unless you are able to get it from your comics retailer.
My Comments: Some great ideas fill this comic. In fact, too many for the amount of space the creators have allowed themselves for them. This comic would work much better as a short series so that they can expand on the missing detail. As it is, the comic feels like they were rushing to fill it, jumps about quite a bit and doesn’t quite deliver a satisfying comics experience.
At times, it needs several reads in order to understand what is happening and moments seem baffling because the time has not been devoted to expanding on concepts and characters.
There is nothing seriously wrong, but the stream of ideas presented within deserve more than a single comic to avoid the feeling that parts of the story are missing. There is a thin line between being fast paced and being overly cut down and this comic crosses it, unfortunately.
The artwork is stylised and interesting, but because of the cut down nature of the comic needs to do more to help comprehension. The scenes and characters are depicted well and consistently, but action scenes are a bit of a problem in a couple of places.
Mostly the artwork is a great example of unique and interesting artwork, however, it is let down by the pacing of the story and needs more space to get into a good flow.
I don’t want to sound too critical as I love the concept and ideas and characters and I would certainly like to see more, but (in the issue I saw, at least) the comic needs more work on character development, idea evolution and pacing to get to the point where it should be.
Glenn needs your feedback! Have your say on the Real Mainstream on The Real Deal message board.
