Mouse Guard Vol. 1: Fall 1152
Archaia Studio Press
During the mid-12th century, three members of an elite guard unit embark on a routine mission, only to discover a wide-reaching conspiracy from within their ownbrotherhood to overthrow their castle, all tied into a legend involving a sacred black ax and a legendary hero. Pretty straightforward medieval adventure story, right?
Well, there is a twist—the characters are all mice.
Writer/artist David Petersen’s hit six-issue miniseries Mouse Guard, which saw several of its earlier issues sell out, has just been collecting into a handsome hardcover, making for a more accessible read, particularly for the audience that should most appreciate it—kids.
The story follows three guardsmice—Saxon, Kenzie and Lieam—who function as sort of mice of the round table, protecting their fellow mice from predators and mice with ignoble intentions. When they seek out a merchant who never reached his destination, they come across a map of the mouse cities, and learn of a mysterious militia calling itself the Black Axe that is intent on revolting against the matron of the guardsmice.
If the story is nothing special, Petersen’s character designs and painted art elevate the proceedings to something well worthwhile. Petersen manages to find the perfect balance between representation and expression in his characters—his mice always look like real mice, but they also look incredibly adorable in every panel.
Their small stature and the perspective that comes with it lead to some wildly imaginative scenes, like fights against a snake and a crab that make the animals seem like giant monsters.
Petersen’s story is simple enough for kids to follow and enjoy, but it never panders. The plot and characters are rudimentary, but hardly two-dimensional, and Petersen doesn’t shy away from light violence, including occasional bloodshed.
In comics the term “all-ages” has ironically come to mean “just for kids,” but Mouse Guard is one of those few comics that actually is for readers of all ages.
The Ancient Book of Myth and War
AdHouse Books
Cartoonist and animator Scott Morse has teamed with three animation designers (some of whom also dabble in comics) to assemble a loosely organized art book covering the rather broad subjects of the title.
This nicely designed hardcover book alternates among contributions from Morse, Lou Romano, Nate Wragg and Don Shank. On the right-hand side is a single image or portrait, of the fine art rather than simple cartoon variety, and on the left are details about the media of the piece, as well as some sort of prose dealing with it.
Morse uses his prose pages for little prose poems brimming with word play—“His Fianna all surly, our hero stood burly and proudly and surely,” Morse writes of Irish hero-giant Finn MacCoul—and an anecdote about the piece. In his images he covers Native American mythology, Oedipus, the Battle of Algiers, the golem and more, all in his signature style of highly abstracted characters made out of simple geometric shapes over cloudy painted backgrounds.
Wragg creates Pathetos, a hapless ancient warrior with Greco-Roman armor and a gumdrop-shaped body that recalls a design from old-school Hanna-Barbera cartoons. He sends Pathetos up against a variety of mythological monsters real, tweaked or completely invented, like the fornicating horsewoman Demonic Centaurides, the lightning-breathing Deep-Sea Hydra and the fire-breathing Sasquatch, all of whom make short work of Pathetos (but like all good cartoon characters, he rises to be killed again in the next scene).
Romano contributes abstract portraits inspired mostly by Greek myths, and uses the prose pages to explain them. Shank similarly works in abstracted imagery, though he tends to invent his own mythology to play with, including such subjects as the Archway Usher and the Goddess of Orange.
The all-over-the-place-ness of the book can be disconcerting, but the more time one spends with the book, the more the anything-goes vibe seems appropriate, given the dreamlike randomness and the mythic subject matter.