Writer: Nick Schley
Artists: Pedro Delgado, Carlos Gomez, Filipe Aguiar (pencils), Adam Frizzell
(page layouts-issue #4), Bob Pedroza (colors)
Publisher: Markosia
I thought about giving ths trade a more positive review simply because of the art, because it’s very good. But unfortunately, even their art couldn’t make up for the things I didn’t like.
Let me clarify. It’s not that this is necessarily the worst comic I’ve ever read, but something completely unusual happened as I began to read this trade. I could not read every word in the book. I began by reading word for word, as I normally do, but it quickly became impossible. I had to start to skim the book when I could no longer look past the awkward, juvenile dialogue or the editing errors. There are many instances of incomplete sentences, missing or incorrect punctuation, and emphasis being placed on the incorrect word; but more important and more glaring than the editing errors, the dialogue and the script itself were weak. I don’t believe there was one instance of dialogue in this book where it is delivered the way that people really speak. When I say it is awkward, it is exactly that—it stumbles rather than flows. Often, the words don’t really seem to fit together in a sentence, much less in a phrase spoken aloud.
The story is essentially a re-imagining of Little Red Riding Hood. It is set in a fantasy world, and our main protagonist is Red, of course, and her adoptive father, Bjor. As a child, Red’s grandmother was killed by the antagonist, the wolf (here known as De’grey), and Red was found by Bjor. Now that she’s an adult, Red is set on slaying the evil wolf. Bjor refuses to let her go after the wolf alone, and they set out together to kill De’grey.
Not a bad premise to the storyline, if it had only been executed in a better way. The script is often odd, with strange responses from the characters to stimuli or to each other. At one point, Red is speaking to two children and telling them the story of when she ran from De’grey as a child and met Bjor. When one child responds in a way that shows he didn’t grasp Red’s point of the story, she responds with an angry outburst. It was startling and confusing. Why was she so angry—at a child, no less? Are we supposed to like a character that, for no apparent reason, yells at a confused child? Once I began to skim the trade (well, let’s call it what it really is—looking at the art), I followed the storyline just fine that way.
Speaking of the art, the pencils are energetic and clean-lined, with an animated style. It effectively displays the action as it takes place, and the emotions that each character is experiencing. If it weren’t for the talent on the art in this book, I’m not entirely sure I could have followed the story. The colors are rich and full, reminding me at times of different animated films that efficiently deal with color and the influence that it can have on the audience’s perception of the art and the story itself. The inks are also intense, in a similar way that the colors are, in that they really help to focus the eye on what is important in a panel and to complete that animated style. All of the artists on this book were a good fit.
I can’t say that I will ever pick up Abiding Perdition again. I won’t. But, I may just pick up a copy on the shelf to look at the art, and I will definitely remember the artists’ names from this book to check out other comics they may work on in the future.
What did you think of this book?
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