4 out of 5

Another surprising gem from one of my new favorite indies – Action Lab (…I write, as I notice a tagline on the interior cover reading “find your new favorite comics.”).  Something about AL feels very welcoming to new readers; even though I’m all on-board for Titan and Amigo, I do feel like they pitch you their whole line, whereas Action Lab has applied their own rating system that underlines the various age range / demographics towards which their various books are aimed.  In other words: read our books, but read the ones you want.

Archon is a clever ready-made world-built fantasy book that blends the “fictional stuff is real” concept from Fables with some fish-outta-water and police procedural concepts.  But this isn’t a simple mash-up, just an easy way to describe the gist.  Writer John J. Perez immediately sets the tone for his tale via the three slices of narrative that start our first issue: an epic recounting of a battle between The Shadow Lord and the Free Men; the pull-back that shows a group of table-top RPG-ing teens playing the tale they’ve told; and another pull-back that introduces us to a diner in 80s Nevada, in which Dungeon Master Billy works, becoming a background character to Gareth and his daughter, who’ve stopped in on their way to Vegas where Gareth will be taking up a security job at the Archon casino.  This isn’t played in an overly clever fashion; Perez gives each turn its full due before moving on.  The Shadow Lord story gains more reference as the series goes on, the owner of the casino having developed the “game” in which the characters appear – and relevant character profiles popping up as backmatter in each issue – and the teens are a smart grounding device that winks at the reader, getting us in the mindset for the reality/fantasy blend.  Any overt single dad schmaltz is also sidestepped via well-timed distraction: Gareth meeting Cayde in the diner, who ends up having his own important role to play in this intriguing action mystery, and later, the moment-to-moment disbelief Gareth must overcome when working at the Archon… which he discovers is staffed by Orcs and Dragons and etcetera.

What’s even more clever about this is how the story itself distracts you from its intentions, by nodding at those various genres I mention above.  We get the humorous moments of the newcomer storyline and the butting heads of the procedural, while something notably devious churns just beneath the surface.  And Perez isn’t hiding this, exactly, so much as letting the plot rear its head relatively organically   It’s truly a unique composition, both fun and can’t-wait-for-the-next-installment to read.

Marco Maccagni’s art is, for the most part, phenomenal, big and bold Chris Bachalo-esque figures without that artist’s disorienting paneling / framing.  Some of Marco’s character models are a bit too similar – particularly our male leads – but the dialogue is well matched to how Maccagni draws their body language and emotions, so despite this, everyone comes across as an individual.  That being said, there is a struggle with scope and timing: scenes that should be BIG don’t seem to be factored in to the flow of the page, rather it often feels like the layout is considered in storyboard fashion, with slight tweaks to the paneling to break things up.  This reduces the action sequences to minor moments, and the shrunken size often means sacrificing details that might’ve smoothed the moment out, allowing more room to lengthen the “time” of the scene we’re witnessing.  Maccagni is well served by colorist Bobby Hernandez – finding a nice mottled palette that allows the tone to stay bouncy but also support the darker elements – and inker Salvatore R. Villirillo, who isn’t scared to lay some flat blacks down and give the cartoonish characters the solid outlines they need while, like the flexibility that mottled palette offers, sketching in the details so that the figures remain fluid.

One of the weaker components is in the lettering.  The spacing and fonts are good, but some of the placement is incredibly distracting – bubbles way out of reading sequence in several spots, breaking the flow.  I recognize this isn’t always an easy task, but it occurs often enough in the series to address it.

Thankfully, this is truly a tale where I’m so into the story and characters that I don’t have to question picking up whatever happens next, despite any criticisms.  And since Perez mentions this as being only the first part of the story on his tumblr, I hope I get the opportunity sooner rather than later to see where things go from here.