Written and illustrated by Adrian Smith, a freelance artist and illustrator who has contributed to, among others; Diablo, Warcraft, Magic: The Gathering and Warhammer. Which is a pretty impressive list of names to have on your resumé. Warhammer is what I personally know him from and when I saw some illustrations of these two comics online, I knew I recognised the style and I bought both volumes immediately.
It took me a while though, but when I finally did get round to reading them, I wasn't disappointed.
There might be a little bit of allegory going on here.
The story;
Three beings chain their mother, the Earth, and the world goes to hell. The sun freezes over, the moon catches fire and while the core of the earth cools, the oceans turn to sludge, their vapors choking the air. Humanity goes insane and degenerates and as the ages pass the lineages of men grow apart, some growing monstrous, others weak and small. Cannibalism is rife and as the powerful enslave and feast on the weak, dark things grow sentient and begin to stalk the forests.
But now mother Earth is healing and is growing strong once more. and in this time she chooses Worm, the weakest creature among those who are bred for their meat and entrusts him with the quest for her salvation...
The first thing you notice while glancing through the books is how little dialogue there actually is. In fact, without the first page, which details the nightmarish but epic background of the story, you wouldn't be able to fill half a page. But even with the minimal amount of dialogue, the art still packs a hefty emotional punch. The big mouths and expressive foreheads of some of the more monstrous characters make for some exeptionally well done facial expressions.
The art on the whole however, while pretty damn amazing, restricted as it is to every shade of grey, is sometimes a tad too dark and at times I really had to strain to make out what was going on.
What is on show though is literally jaw-dropping.
I mean, look at this.
Massive battles, vast armies marching across tainted lands, hulking monstrosities, elaborate gothic armor endowed with what is probably every spiky object known to man, all in panels that you wish you could frame on your wall.
On the other hand, some of the sequences don't flow all that great and as there are many battles we are given more often impressions of the larger whole rather than a continuous flowing story. It's a minor quibble and is to be expected in any comic with large scale action. And even despite that, there's such an enormous amount of detail on display that I was willing to overlook the problematic parts.
But I do have to make a small note that in the latter half of the second book, the art, while staying broadly the same, sometimes turns a little more towards the impressionistic. I'm assuming there was a bit of rushing as the second book is about 26 pages longer than book 1.
It's by no means bad, and does work quite well on its own, but it did make the last big battle even harder to follow.
In contrast though, there was a chase scene in the second book, where Worm is being chased by zombie-like creatures, that was just incredibly well done. The village scene, which I've partially shown here, is also very effective.
So all in all, I'm really very pleased with the whole thing. The art is amazing. It has an archetypal story where nature fights against the rampant depradations of man, and while the ending is a bit abrupt, it is unambiguous and very satisfying.
And Worm is such a loveable little bugger.
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| Three-rooted Worm. Our Hero. Our Savior. |
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