Comics I Bought This Week: July 30, 2009

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics, a trade paperback collection plus a hard cover collection:

Glamourpuss -8

Fear Agent - 27

Lone Ranger Volume 3 (HC)

Northlanders Volume 2 "The Cross and the Hammer" (TPB)

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"The Mice Templar: The Prophecy" by Bryan J.L. Glass and Michael Avon Oeming

I had read some good things about "The Mice Templar" but was still hesitant to pick it up. I'm not sure if it's because the name is a bad pun or because Mickey Mouse has made me prejudice against mouse stories in general. Either way the trade paperback collection of it came out on a slow week at the comic shop so I decided to give it a try.

The world of "The Mice Templar" is pretty interesting. They give it some nice backstory with myths and legends based on our own but different enough to make the mice's world unique.

It's also a quest, coming of age, fulfilling a prophecy story. I'm usually not a prophecy fan and the other elements can become clichéd pretty fast but Glass and Oeming play with the expectations of such stories in such a way as to make it fresher than I expected.

The story also had more breadth and depth than I anticipated. They create a world filled with history, legend, gods, and danger. All based on the natural world without mankind on the scene. It owes a lot to the world of fantasy novels, as is stated in the afterword, with animals playing the parts of various orcs, goblins, trolls, or whatever fantasy races that we are used to seeing.

Oeming's art in the book is very nice and I especially like the coloring by Wil Quintana. They do a good job of visualizing the world of the mice and the other creatures.

The only complaint I have about the art is that in the first issue, when there is a whole town full of mice, I was a little confused because I had a hard time telling all the mice apart. It's tough to make them all distinct. They're mice after all. I mention this only because if I had only purchased the first issue I might have stopped there. So if you've only read the first issue pick up the rest because the confusion ends quickly.

So I have to say that "The Mice Templar: The Prophecy" lives up to its reputation as a good comic. I'm glad I picked it up despite my own prejudices. Give it a try.