Jabal Entertainment/IDW Publishing 2018
Written by Nnedi Okorafor
Illustrated by Eric Battle
Coloured by Jason Scott Jones
Lettered by Thomas Maur
Honour through perseverance. Legacy through diversity. IDW is proud to present the epic story of one of history's greatest warriors and finest poets: Antar the Black Knight. A despised camel driver born of an African slave mother and an Arab Noble father, Antar proves that heroes are made by embracing who we are and dreaming about what we can become.
This was a complete and utter surprise for me. Growing up I learned the history of my people and as slaves for the Egyptians and it seems that slavery in that region was never limited to one people. The Ottoman’s, Arabs and Egyptians were all notorious for their slavery practices. Here in the United States the slavery of Africans brought over is the one that people talk about solely it seems. Their slavery while not the first nor the last doesn’t diminish the impact but here we see a look at what happened over there long before it hit the shores of the new world. A reminder that as long as their have been civilisations there has been slavery and those who rose above it to become legends of their people. This is one such tale and it’s important for more reasons than you may realise.
This is my introduction to Antar which is a man collected from many myth’s and an epic poem of his exploits. From a time before Islam where Christianity, Judaism and Pagans ruled the peninsula. I like and dislike the whole idea that man’s existence is centred around the fact that the domination of his fellow man dictated a rulers status. However if it were not this way we wouldn’t have real heroes who rise up above their own place in the hierarchy to show that no man is unable to write his own destiny. Without heroes of all shapes, sizes, gender and ethnicity we wouldn’t be where we are now.
This is beautifully written and the way the book is structured gets us to a point where the introduction bleeds into the meat of the story. This fast pacing may seem like things would get glossed over but instead Nnedi manages to cover his young life from before he’s born to being twelve years old in such a way that allows to see and learn of life in this era, 525A.D.. We get a sense of who these people are from either their cruelty or through their passionate nature. Everything you need to know to understand and empathise with these people is rendered superbly.
Eric has always been a very good, strong and talented artist whose work is beautiful and here the work is no different. There is some of the finest demonstration of varying weights in linework going on here. There is this boldness in the work that is extremely well felt by me as a reader and then to see all the subtle uses of it as well in the definition of bodies or faces making softness not appear as a weakness is amazing to see. The attention to detail is simply gorgeous and while there is a fair amount of backgrounds being utilised I would still like to see more. They expand the story and make moments pop like no other. The utilisation of page layouts so that we see the angles and perspective in the panels showcases his eye for storytelling.
There really is such an amazing amount of stellar storytelling going on in these pages. There is an underlying strength to those that we see as well as some characterisation that enhances the way we see the people here. The power of storytelling is an amazing gift to possess and to see this here like it is reminds how lucky I am to be living in a time that it can be told.