2 out of 5

I’ll be here for volume 2 of By the Thorns; I was here for every issue of volume 1, and looked forward to reading each next issue as I turned the closing page of the preceding one. Writer Markisan Naso earned enduring fandom from me on the several iterations of Voracious, which has survived the years hence and multiple rereads; there’s a rare rate of survival of such scrutiny from me, given my need to constantly pare down my collection to fit my long boxes.

Voracious was rough around the edges, but the way Naso nursed the premise from quirky to complex, and paralleled that with affecting character development that grounded the sci-fi, made for a compelling read that well overcame those edges. A similarly endearing, net-positive balance was added by artist Jason Muhr, whose mix of anime expressiveness with photo-reference-esque character models crafted a beautiful if soapy vibe that synced greatly with Naso, while occasionally over-selling some moments through excess design. In short: the duos’ positives helped each other, and smoothed out their negatives, with each Voracious volume getting more and more comfortable.

In music, in movies, we often see a ‘bigger is better’ mantra affecting a sophomore outing. While everything mentioned about Voracious remains true with Naso’s / Muhr’s sophomore original comic creation, By the Horns, the ‘bigger’ notion also came into play, and though the expansion is really, really impressive, the execution… falls flat. It’s kind of wild, actually – and I kind of love it for this reason – how impossible that should be, given how stuffed with story and how overboard with visuals the eight issues are, but I also can’t deny the negative impact of that: that the book ends up feeling shallow, like the later-phase Marvel movies, where we kinda sorta should be wowed, but there’s a been-there facileness, despite clear efforts in front of and behind cameras and computers. And if you note I’ve again started comparing Horns to a non-comics medium – yes, exactly. These are the lingering feelings with which I was left: so much energy to get this big ol’ idea on the page that Niso and Muhr overcorrected: the characters’ paths are tropes; the visuals are non-stop flash. I just wanted some time to breathe and soak in this world building, and instead we’re tossed another bestiary entry, or unearned emotional backstory, or big-bad-battle overcome by macguffin. Dangit there’s so much sort of between the panels to love, it probably is what makes its lack of impact that much more impactless.

By the Horns concerns Elodie, and her talking giant wolf dog horned thing, Sajen, monster killers for the fantasy/science/magic town of Wayfarer. Elodie hates unicorns for reasons, and does the monster killer bit along the way to tracking down and murdering all unicorns, instead of settling down in Wayfarer to do more productive fantasy/science/magic town stuff. Her people are a bit perturbed by this obsession; Elodie is shooed out of town. …And then gets the chance to protect people from a wild wizard, which opens up a questline that puts unicorn murder on hold while she tracks down other wild wizards. (Except she’ll need to partner up with some unicorns to do so!)

This is a trite summary, but only to keep it short; the setup is solid, and the opening issue includes the space I was asking for… but the cracks are there all the same: the unicorn conceit feels like a back-of-napkin idea around which Naso tried to focus his story, and as such, it’s the main plot point but never carries much weight – once Elodie’s hate is explained, the immaturity of it (which I’d say is purposeful, if she’s following a type of hero’s journey to look beyond herself) is pitched in a kind of rushed fashion; it never feels like we really deal with it. Additionally, the method for getting Elodie on the road is forced – this is a big story trying to meet its outline beats, no matter what. And then once the fighting starts, it doesn’t stop, leading to a series of video game levels and pinups.

…Which are illustrated so, so lavishly, with wild camera angles and character designs and the loveliest of bloody neon / forest colors from Andrei Tabacuru, but again, Naso is busy telling so much story somewhere not on the page that Muhr is stuck between these pinups and trying to world build visually, often leading to action that feels super duper cool but doesn’t actually get the room to flow.

I am sure it is hard to tell an epic comic story when you’re maybe not sure how  many issues you’ll get to make, or your publisher cuts you to eight when you need / want twelve. Whether or not that happened, Naso and Muhr are clearly telling and epic, and the love and effort emanate, but the end result has been pared down to quick hits – a would-be blockbuster movie that you desperately want to love, but it never quite makes the mark.

However, in film, those are the ones that tend to become cult hits you return to again and again…