2 out of 5

I’m not saying that ‘major’ comic authors aren’t guilty of this sin, but it’s something I tend to see more frequently in those newer to telling comic stories in a longer medium, whether its an ongoing or, in this case, an original graphic novel – the empty big idea.  It’s an understandable recipe: you get your big idea that you really want to write or draw, and then you start justifying that big idea with other ideas.  Writer Axelrod explains that as his process in the backmatter of ‘Battle’: “An isolated city… a flying city!  …And in the middle of it, a young woman who changes everything.”  Big idea: isolated, flying city.  Now a need a charater: a woman who changes everything.  What does she change? …and so on, until you have your plot beats.  I know, it seems like a reasonable way to tell a story, and I’m not saying its so dissimilar from how your favorite author might go about his or her business, but to me, very often, this results in that sense of emptiness – as all the ideas sprang forth because of your original one, everything we experience is just a justification after the fact.  One must start with an idea, of course, but the tweak is to accept that your idea must only be a part of the story; each peak or valley, each character, each aspect should be able to feel like a starting point.  That doesn’t mean you need pages of backstory for a dude who appears in half a scene, but I want to feel like that dude isn’t just an extra but could have a story.

(Yes, the unpublished author who reviews old comics and CDs is available for lectures, any time.  I accept raw meat for payment – MUST BE FRESH.)

‘Battle of Blood and Ink’ takes a fair steampunk setting, and that’s it.  We’re following the publisher of an underground paper – Ashe – on a short journey of discovery (of herself, of her home) that leads to everything going kablooey and changing.  There are hints of unique elements here (the tattoos along Ashe’s arms being indications of her upbringing, an admirer from the upper class who owns his own printing press, the flying city’s trade arrangements with other lands), but nothing’s given a clear enough sense of identity – including the city – to make Ashe’s tale effective.  I wasn’t even clear as to whether the various lands that were being discussed were other flying cities, or part of this city, or something else, until the final panel showed someone looking up at the city from the ground below.  And the small smattering of characters in the tale – Ashe’s friend Tolban, her admirer, Cardor – are used as placeholders.  At one point, Tolban refuses to help Ashe’s quest to expose the city’s secrets, at another point, he’s gung-ho to die, jumping into the fray.  And Cardor is simply a means to get Ashe closer to the city’s leader, the Provost, even though his arc could’ve offered some interesting depth to class differences.  Axelrod also overdoes it early on with a page from Ashe’s paper – the old-timey language is too old-timey, and the paper itself has too many specifics in it that don’t tie to anything important in the story… a hint about a water shortage, and some panels showing extortion of taxes for water, but this doesn’t really matter at all.  If this had been a repeated gimmick in the story, then it might’ve worked, but as a one-off page, it needed to connect better.

Steve Walker’s art displays a fair sense of framing, and he has a quick-handed simplicity that reminded me of Kevin O’Neill, but Walker doesn’t seem to be as comfortable with black and white… B&W does take a bit of refinement to work with the negative space and make what you want to stand out.  And this is also, in part, due to the writing, but pages that hop from character to character or scene to scene in each panel are lacking some kind of grounding that gives us an indication that there’s been a scene change.  If not indicated by a location header, you assume you’re looking at a different viewpoint of the previous scene, but nope, the setting has actually changed.

So, yes, ‘Blood and Ink’ stands out as the work of amateurs.  But I don’t mean that so dismissively.  If you go back in anyone’s career, the first steps are probably shaky.  This attempt is a bit empty, and the art is stiff and lacks a true melding with the narrative, but there’s nothing here that says to me that these boys can’t write and draw, and that some practice and patience could develop something that leaves ‘Battle’ in the dust.