Archaia 2021
Written by Amal El-Mohtar
Illustrated by Isa Hanssen
Lettered by Jim Campbell
Meet Reynard, a wily but penniless fox who boasts to his learned friend Stork that he will make himself a fortune at the market, despite having nothing to sell but an empty pouch.
But Reynard's scheme may come with terrible consequences, both for the customers he cons and for the con-man himself…
I love this series and seeing how each issue is done by a different creative team that focuses on legend of myth that comes from various parts of the world. I will say that while our daring duo being out and about thrilled me to no end I was hoping that they’d come across a storyteller telling their tale and them listening to it. While the story is wonderful I was a tad disappointed this however changed as the realisation that the story was a product of where they were and what was happening around them. I love how we see the environment influence the story that we see and how it ends up being told. There is some nice influence going on and it really helps make the story stand out.
I like how this is being told. How we see the story & plot development unfold through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceedingly well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter help to flesh them out extremely well. The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the stories and pulling the reader deeper and deeper in tot he proceedings it is easy to find yourself thoroughly enchanted by both tales.
I am very much enjoying how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story play their parts to tell such a complete tale in such a short amount of space. It is a short story placed within a larger one but it’s still all a one-and-done story and to have it feel so complete and so fully realised shows just how talented a writer Amal truly is. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is extremely well achieved.
The interiors here are absolutely lovely. I feel like we’re looking at the illustrations in a children’s book and how that effects the reader is spectacular to see. The linework is beautifully laid down and how we see the varying weights being utilised to create the detail work we see is extraordinarily well rendered. That we see backgrounds being utilised as we do and how they work within the composition within the panels bring out the depth perception, that sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show an extremely talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is beautifully rendered as well. There is a subtlety to the colour choices that worlds exceptionally well within the confines of this story. The way we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is delicately done that it feels like a dream coming to life. The eye for colour is extraordinary here and it just resonates with the reader on so many emotional levels.
This is one of my favourite series as it has each story focusing on a different type of Trickster and if you look at the stories the fox is not evil, nor really good, but a trickster whose out for himself and is capable of outsmarting just about everyone. That we see this third type in the third issue engages my mind in some wondrous ways and it makes feel like i’m involved and invested in these stories. It is a powerful series and each person will find that it is so and touches them in its own unique way.