The Karman Blade #1 // Review
The well digger Anatta has endured quite a lot. All of the water seems to be gone. It's a vast desert. It's a roll roll over by the.Kalu. His brain has been brutal. The water has dried up and the days since he rose to power. Or perhaps the well digger of might be able to do something about that in The Karman Blade #1. Writer Darcy Van Poelgeest and artist Ian Bertram Open a whole new fantasy series feels grown directly from some other plane that existence. There's deep poetry in the way that the opening chapter is brought to page and panel.
Anatta keeps dreaming of a blade. A sword. And it's something he's not supposed to be dreaming about. And there it is. Something of great power. Something that seems to have chosen him as much as he might want to choose it. It would be a horrible responsibility. It would mean, standing up to the oppression of the situation and actually doing something about it. Something beyond continuing to dig in the desert from water that simply isn't there. Life seems to be more or less less unbearable. Maybe all he needs is the right push.
Darcy Van Poelgeest cleverly frames, very simple and powerful kind of heretic allegory. The world is a desert and people are dying. There is a God that is responsible for that. A single man might be able to overcome the situation if he can only overcome the uncertainty within. It's all very poetic. However, it's so tied into heroic troops that have been explored a million times before that it feels entirely too familiar to be totally original. The specifics of the feel very compelling. However, the overreaching Trump's that are brought into play feel like they've been done to death.
Bertram’s art settles into the page with a very assertive rendering style. Lots of rugged hatching seems to have settled its way upon the page unapologetically. There's a kind of radiance above the darkness that Bertram commits to the page. Of the artist line work gives of durability about the art. The whole world feels like it's been through hell and back again. It's all scratched and etched into the page with striking clarity that doesn't leave room for a whole lot of salt. Nevertheless, it's there. There is nuance and intricacy of characterization in the way that the artist delivers the opening chapter.
One of the more compelling aspects of this particular fantasy is the fact that it lacks the kind of grandiose terrorism that so often plays sort and sorcery fantasy. What has to happen here isn't going to be pretty. It's going to be ugly. And the hero, who finally romance and picks up the blade. Is it going to be celebrated. It's pretty queer about that's the case. He might not even survive what it is that he has to do. He's not going to make a name or a legend for himself. If he's successful, he kills a God. But that might as well be just another well. He has to dig. It's elegantly bleak stuff.
