Lion Forge Cub House 2018
Story by Art Baltazar, Franco & Chris Giarrusso
Illustrated & Lettered by Chris Giarrusso
Encounter is a new kind of hero; an alien escaped to Earth with pods that will eventually hatch to become his siblings, who can take any form he chooses, and decides to become a hero! With help from his talking dog Barko, he fights crime on our planet. But there is a mysterious figure who will try anything to defeat him.
I am a huge fan of all three of these gentlemen and once I realised what the book was I was really excited to read it. Yes I know it is technically geared towards the younger reader set but there’s a reason it’s called all-ages because as an adult, sometimes debatable, I found myself just enamoured with this story. There is something genuinely fun about this that manages to bring back memories and experiences of my childhood and that just cannot be beat.
I think I giggled throughout the entire book and I cannot express enough how I much I needed that. I mean when the real gets too much to handle and it seems that everyone is obsessing over politic or some trivial television programme this makes an escape from all that a perfect reason to enjoy it. The way the book is structured is fantastic and the flow of it is great as we get introduced to our main character and Gadget Man, and yes I was all go go Gadget so that was cute. For an all-ages book the action scenes are just that action there’s very little “real” violence going on so that it feels a cartoon.
There are some fantastic surprises thrown at us and references to pop culture that some younger folks may not get but it won’t over the heads of the adults which is among the many reason I am enjoying this. Also how Encounter came to be is here as well, his origin story if you will and it too is hella cute and quite different and interesting. The whole alien aspect to it takes it to a level where the idea of him trying to fit in and learn about Earth and it’s culture not to mention to behave and interact with others well there are lessons to be learned all around.
The interiors here are utterly spectacular and Chris does some amazing work here. It has this vibrancy of colour that is appealing in ways you have to experience and the colour scheme for Encounter and his sidekick, yes he has one of those, is great. Yes he reminds me of the Impossible Man only cooler oh yeah by the by nice inclusion of Aw Yeah Comics was a beautiful touch. I really really like that Chris makes this like a cartoon on PBS. The way he’s able to use page layouts and show the angles and perspective in the panels shows off his great eye for storytelling.
What the guys are doing here is bringing us the perfect blend of everything that can be put into an all-ages book and make it so successful. I think I am a huge fan of the way we see Encounter think through his situation and come up with the solution. Try and try again until you figure out how it works and that makes me think of how many individuals of all ages need to be reminded of that. Also with his sidekick and best friend not to mention his own store to run, how that came about we’ll hopefully learn one day but I like it and their work neighbour Kayla, who works at Aw Yeah Comics flesh out the supporting cast beautifully.
Charming, beautifully put together and all around what the world needs.