Action Lab Entertainment 2019
By Rod Espinosa
The gigantic caravan of Lord Justinius Biverius is quickly falling apart. Impressive in size, it was slow and ponderous. Now, it is nothing but a wounded beast. The verbolg army is quickly overwhelming them all. Clari has just rescued Asogog from being a circus slave. Asogog turns out to be a very capable warrior, and now he helps her navigate the chaos as they try to save what is left of their portion of the caravan. Will they come back in time to save their friends, the orphans and the nursemaids?
I really really like this book, this story and these characters. Yes this is very much a dungeons & dragons style world they inhabit with wizards, different races and all that encompasses, and yet watching Clair throughout shows this level of characterisation that is just outstanding. That Rod does the entire thing himself is even more impressive in my humble opinion and I love that everything we see on the page is precisely what Rod intends to get the maximum impact for the reader.
I like the way that this is being told. The story & plot development alongside the character development that we see here as they wind in, out and around each other like an archer with his bow and arrows really hits the mark. With the pacing moving everything ever forward and with how we see revelations, information and all the twists and turns it creates the sensational ebb & flow for the reader. I love how we see the how what happens in the story directly affects the characterisation here. There are some truly wondrous moments that occur and it changes not only our perspective in the characters but has this aspect of reality to how people react that is to be appreciated.
Now to focus on the characterisation here for a minute and how the story directly relates. As Asogog and Clari become human archer targets and go from that to wonder warriors is a transition that is to be admired. Also the way we see Lord Justinius’ troops find a new respect for Asogog and Clari throughout the story is nicely done and it has this incredibly natural flow to it that feels right. It is always good to see what happens and feel that it is done in a way that feels right, that right feeling doesn’t always happen so when it does you need to take notice.
The interiors here are absolutely lovely. The linework is fantastic it is both delicate yet strong and how the varying weights are utilised to bring out the attention to detail is extremely nice to see. Another part of this that I really like seeing is how the backgrounds tend to be almost shrouded in mist so that we see them and yet the eye is meant to focus on what’s prominent. I do like I think it is a very effective way to utilise the backgrounds without it feeling busy or overpowering the main subjects. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show us this excellent job for storytelling. The colour work here is fantastic and what I love to see is how colour is utilised to create musculature without true linework. The colours that we see have the various hues and tones utilised to create shading and shadows and doesn’t feel blocky but has a much more flowing feel to them.
This is the definition of all-ages. We have this young woman finding her place in the world and along the way learning life lessons and showing what the power of friendship is capable of. If I had children or my nephews here this is something I would encourage them to read. Then of course talk about around the table while eating as this is a much better reason to have a device free meal. Think about talk about the book which segues into life in general and what’s going on. Like I said the epitome of all-ages. Action Lab Entertainment needs to be on everyone’s radar as they have some of the finest stories around.