Dynamite Entertainment 2017
Written by James L. Sutter
Illustrated by Ediano Silva
Coloured by Omi Remalante
Lettered by Tom Napolitano
In the magical city of Korvosa, a killer is hunting Varisian sorcerers and slicing away their
magical tattoos. Yet when Seoni and her band of adventurers is called home to deal with the threat, she quickly learns that the problem runs far deeper than an ordinary serial killer. With the fate of her entire homeland at stake, Seoni and her friends will need to take on devil-binding Hellknights, bizarre monsters, and an ancient legacy written into her very skin…
James work on this is really growing on me. I like this adventure, the way we’re learning more about Seoni, her family and her past. While sometimes the past should remain a mystery there are times that exploring that can turn up more questions than answers and honestly I think James is doing that magnificently well. The more we learn the more we want to know and sometimes the less we understand it’s a wonderful way to write and it keeps us coming back time and again to see what’s going to happen next.
The dialogue and the characterisation here is fantastic to see. Between the action, Freudian slips and outright flirting and asserting one’s opinion that we see in these pages makes for some stellar more realistic people. James may too have found the secret that makes Jim’s writing of the genre so damn popular. It really is like a group of close familiar friends are playing a game module and their dialogue/interaction/gameplay is on the page for us to bathe in.
Speaking of bathing in greatness well okay so I hadn’t been but we will now. The attention to detail here is so gosh darn good and the linework, it’s weight on the page and how it used to make the clothes, magic or action come to life is spectacularly done. I appreciate how page layouts are used showcasing angles and perspective. I’d like to see more use of backgrounds here since when they are used they do broaden what we see considerably. Still the creativity and imagination on display here is so well conceived and executed by Ediano and Omi.
I will say that I am enjoying seeing how the group has to navigate things. From one angle they are being used by the Queen and her forces while stepping on toes, see getting in the way, of a rogue agent of said Queen and her forces (rogue agent not Queen) while still trying to figure out why mages are being skinned alive for the tattoo’s. Granted the last isn’t as hard to decipher as it is the source of their power or at least a manifestation of it.
Anyone who is a fan of team books should be reading these. They take characters that may or may not be as successful on their own and make them formidable together. Not to mention it’s just plain old fashioned fun to see how all this unfolds.