I’m surprised to see a comic which has a story that takes place in my country, Venezuela. A quite unusual thing and I admit that this is the first one I’ve see. Ir’s always great to see books venture away from traditional settings, even if that change here was just for this issue.
The summarized story at the beginning was good to catch readers up. I felt again I was missing key parts of the whole plot and that I should read the past issues to fully understand it, but it wasn’t a strong feeling as with other comic books that just get right down to business.
Ninjak #17 was very fast paced and starts with a kind of pre-climax that was pretty cool. It was filled with tension and action in equal parts. Also, it was a wise choice to start with a contrast between the past and the present using similar images. Really fun way to make a point.
From there, things continue to improve and develop in a nice ways, although I have some doubts about centering the the entire issue around a single fight. Still, it’s not that heavy because of the many flashbacks and solid dialogue we get.
As a whole, it was a fast paced reading with some risky scenes and plot twists but with a cool job. It wasn’t the best reading ever, there was a lack of actual content I would have preferred, but I’m happy with what I have in this issue in particular.
The final scenes in the book are pretty interesting, and they offer a cool side of the story we wouldn’t get otherwise, but I would have considered it better if there were some more as they didn’t gave us enough story.
The art and the coloring is really dynamic and really impressed me several times during my read. Using different planes and framing added a new perspective to the whole thing, and the semiotic style on each page was really well worked. It’s fair to say that it was a good team job all around.
As a bonus, I have to mention my favorite page being the one with Roku and the tree. It had a wonderful mix between traditional comic art and digital effects and while I admit it looks strange at first sight, it really sticks with you after you finish reading.
I was especially thrilled by the way they gave detail to Roku’s attacks. Delicate and lethal at the same time is something challenging to do well, and this was one of the few cases where it worked well. More points to the book because of this.
There also some good ideas and concepts I saw that were drawn from ancient mythology along with classic and contemporary comic ideas. I can’t say if I’d keep reading this, but since it’s a unique concept and story, I would like to see how this evolves.
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