4 out of 5

Ah, a quest begins.  There truly is nothing like being swept up in a quest, especially in book or comic form.  The movie parallel for this is the classic 80s action/adventure model of Goonies and such, but those are their own form of feeling, something a bit more final, as you know it to be wrapped up in 90 minutes, or at most, a sequel or two.  But words and pictures: Even if it’s a limited series, as with Scott Chantler’s Three Thieves, there’s this promise of an endless more that comes packaged with the best of quests, people you meet and places you see and daring escapes and near-misses offered up a’plenty but also hiding between panels, pages.  Comics are a visual form, as with movies, but there’s still so much room for imagination, making the scenes live and breathe with your thoughts.

So, yes, a well written quest tickles a particular quest-hungry bone in the body, and the best of them can do that from page one.

Enough stalling: Yes, from page one – okay, page two, when we see the castle – Tower of Treasure intrigues, as Dessa, riding with her circus troupe, pulls into town.  Unfortunately, it seems like carneys never get a good rap, even in fantasy realms, so as Dessa later performs her Tightrope routine, diminutive ‘Norker’ Topper sets to pickpocketin’.  Though things don’t quite go as planned, and Dessa ends up getting tasked with finding grub for the whole troupe else she’s out.  Desperation a great motivator, she decides to join Topper and strongman Fisk on a plot to rob the town’s tower of… yeah, its treasure.  Soon enough this winds into some details from Dessa’s past, and provides the threads to follow in the books to come…

Printed via the indie Kids Can Press, Tower is nicely sized – akin to Scholastic’s grafix line – with a stitched binding! and Chantler goes with a range of milder off-colors that do a good job of making the pages bright and distinct without undermining the more dramatic potential of the storyline.  His artwork is streamlined and very fluid, working well for both smaller dialogue moments and the big action chase sequences, with a special skill for capturing the essence of his characters quite exactly with their designs.  He also seemingly redraws panels instead of statting them (just based on slight variations in background details) which I always respect even though I’m sure someone somewhere is clicking their tongue over non-maximized time.

If there’s a criticism to be made – and hey, there is, I’m making it and docking a star – it’s that Dessa’s background, which fuels her motivation with events, is presented with some forced mystery – meaning showing us only bits in flashbacks to withhold information.  This isn’t so bad in terms of pacing, but these flashbacks arrive without precedence right at the start of the story and so lack some impact.  It’s shorthand front-loading so the story can get on it’s way.  Overall, because the characterizations and pacing are so sharp, it’s certainly a forgivable flaw, but it’s underwhelming as a motivator as it lacks context.

Not that that, in any way, should stop you from diving into this series.  It’s wonderful when a creator knows how to properly ramp up an adventure, and yet make each step thrilling on its own.  Scott Chantler’s Tower of Treasure meets that criteria, while also setting your quest-bone a’bristle.  (Or whatever quest bones do.  Tribble?  Quartle?  All of that.)