The Mice Templar No. 1
Image Comics
Bryan J. L. Glass and Michael Avon Oeming’s timing is so bad on this series that one can’t help but feel sorry for them. A fantasy adventure about mice who are also sword-wielding knights, the pitch for their new series sounds identical to that of David Petersen’s 2006 surprise hit Mouse Guard, the sequel to which just kicked off last week.
The comparison is as unfair as it is inevitable. While there’s quite a bit to be said for a wholly original idea, “mice with swords” isn’t really such an idea, and in a medium like comics, in which drawing plays such an integral part, execution often matters more than the idea itself.
And Glass and Oeming’s mice-with-swords story is far different from Petersen’s, though both have their pleasures. While Petersen’s book looked and moved like a children’s book, coasting on the dissonance between the cute characters and their brutal adventures, The Mice Templar fits more squarely into a typical fantasy-story frame.
A society of medieval mice tell tales of the seemingly defunct order of knights known as the Mice Templar (great name, that), though it lives on in the stories and games of young mice like Leito and Karic. When an army of rats attacks their village, the boys and a mysterious old mouse named Pilot the Tall are plunged headlong into a quest. Think Lord of the Rings meets Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.
Robot Dreams
First Second Books
Sara Varon’s wordless graphic novel opens with a scene of a dog making a new friend, in both a figurative and literal sense. See, his new friend is a robot, which he assembled from a kit he received in the mail. Tragedy strikes their budding relationship during a trip to the beach, when the poor robot discovers the fun spent frolicking in the waves has come at a grave cost—his insides are rusted, and he can’t leave his beach towel. By the time the dog returns with a book on robot repair and tools, the beach is closed for the season and he can’t get in.
Varon then checks in with the pair month by month, as they silently deal with their separation from one another and slowly make new friends.
The dog hangs out with anteaters, but can’t stomach their dinners. He gets along with some ducks, but they fly away in the winter. He befriends a snowman, but it doesn’t last once spring comes.
Varon’s simple artwork and anthropomorphic animal designs are all darling, and while some of the beats are funny, there’s a bittersweet streak running through the book. Not unlike Craig Thompson’s much-lauded Goodbye, Chunky Rice, there’s a palpable sense of heartbreak on almost every page, one that’s belied by the funny animal drawings. It’s a deceptively mature and incisive book, a work that isn’t read as much as it is experienced.
My Cat Loki Vol. 1
Tokyopop
Oh manga, will you never cease finding new ways to completely freak me out?
Bettina M. Kurkoski tells a simple, somewhat silly story about oblivious young artist Ameya, who can no longer bring himself to paint. Having lost his cat Luka several years earlier, Ameya is still in mourning, having considered the cat a combination of brother and muse rather than a pet. Things change for him when he finds the titular cat in a rainstorm.
After Ameya adopts Loki as his new pet/friend/muse, his life starts to turn around, although he still completely fails to notice that his buxom art agent is madly in love with him.
So, what’s freaky about all that?
Well, Kurkoski makes a single stylistic choice that leads to one hell of a weird read. She occasionally depicts Loki not as a cat, but as a young boy in a cargo pants, a T-shirt, tennis shoes and a collar and with cat ears and a tail. He doesn’t actually turn into a catboy, she just draws him like that, usually when the cat needs to communicate a more human emotion.
It’s a rather interesting approach, but when coupled with Ameya’s doting on the cat to the exclusion of the women sexually interested in him, the scenes of him cuddling with a young catboy take on a weird air that Kurkoski may or may not have intended.