Dark Ages #1
Dark Ages © Ooops - left details at home - update later
| Dark Ages #1 Contributors Richard Tomasic, Linc Polderman, Johnny Lauck & Earl Geier, John R G Barrett & Marty Webber |
If I had one word to describe this, I'd use 'ugh'. It's not that it's bad... it's that it's BLOODY bad. What we're presented with is an anthology of sword & sorcery tales, a genre that should have died in the 70's after the Conan boom faded.
I'm sure there's a market for sword still, but like a genuinely talented boy band, it'll be pretty hard to find & even harder to exploit. The dialogue bears the flowery verse that is the genre's hallmark & the art is universally poor, going for mainstream style illustration but achieve hallmark & the art is universally poor, going for mainstream style illustration but achieving Viz-knock-off quality.
To be fair, it has to be said that the main strip by Tomasic has some very strong sequential storytelling, both well composed & interesting... unfortunately the pedestrian art lets it down badly. Given an extremely overpowering & good mainstream inker, like a Kevin Nolan for instance, this would work well but as it is, it falls flat.
As to the quality of the stories... well, to be honest I gave up half way through & just skimmed over enough of the rest to get a decent impression. Despite a strong effort this is pants & should be avoided like the Saturday night TV schedule.
Bleh.
Nigel Lowrey
| Dark Ages #1: 52 28x21cm pages, full colour glossy cover | Received at ZUM! HQ: no details |
$3.75 +P+P . | Johnny Lauck, Alternative Concepts, 2376 W Michigan Ave, Battle Creek, MI 49017, USA |