That great classic film Zulu is responsible for capturing the imagination of a lot of people. I know of at least one friend who rates it very highly, & I would imagine that Colin Mathieson would rate this as one of his all time favourite films. Since seeing it in his youth he has nursed an interest in the Boer conflicts & this particular episode in those wars seems to have lit his young imagination.
The fire of that interest still seems to burn keenly from evidence of the text & editorial pages accompanying this comic. And there's the comic itself: a heartfelt desire to tell a story drawn from his specialist knowledge. Comics are a great medium in this respect, allowing the creator to tell a living, breathing story with little outlay. Until there is some way to get the images directly out of your brain & into a moving image format, then comics is the closest that you are likely to get to fulfilling those dreams.
The story itself is all very Boys Own Adventures - all heroics & near death scrapes. It focuses on the events at the expense of the people, thus the people lack any real depth. I don't meant to belittle the subject matter, as this may well be based on actual events, but my views on the actuality of history are clouded by the fact that if you ask a dozen people witnessing the same things an hour ago what actually happened, then you may get a consensus - but you may well not get the truth. History is conjecture & consensus, thus this may well be real, but it's still just a story.
The artwork may be a weak point. Colin shows signs that he has little in the way of prolonged formal art training. This does not mean that the whole thing is a hash - no - Colin also has, as stated, a love for the subject matter, so although I have no knowledge of the uniforms of the soldiers, for instance, I am satisfied that his everything is present & correct. This love for the subject, I suspect will not allow his pride to be besmirched by making any errors, so - while the penmanship does not exactly flow, it has life; while the human proportions may look wrong on occasion, the whole comic is constant in its presentation, thus the read is comfortable enough. It's in some of the less specific areas that I feel occasionally confused: is that a large rocky hill in the background, or smoke? I suspect the former, as I seem to recall images of memorials to fallen soldiers atop rock strewn hills in the sunset in documentaries I’ve watched in the past, but it's these little things, that when reading he comic in detail, I find disconcerting. That is reading thing in detail for the purpose of critique… when reading this comic at leisure I found it fluent enough, & would certainly recommend it to those with a passing interest in the area of war & comics. Although rough at the edges, this is professionally produced, packaged which adds to its aura of authority.
mooncat