3 out of 5

I have a funny idea for a t-shirt. You… may be too young to remember when that was a thing, or maybe I’m making up that it was a thing, but designing a winning t-shirt seemed like the viral video / post path-to(-relative)-fame at some point – assuming that reference isn’t also dated whenever you read this – and I was sitting on my own THIS COULD BE HUGE idea. I mean, I knew it wouldn’t be huge; I maybe kinda knew it wasn’t even funny. But I really liked it, and I kept tweaking other ideas off of that original idea, leaving it baking in my brain for literal (sigh) decades. It is very possible – i.e. true – that I still think about it today, and how I can work the idea into other things, and occasionally I’ll tell people about it, and it never comes out quite as funny as it feels in my head.

I think we all have ideas like this: not fully fleshed out ideas that persist; that we keep toying with. And I suppose I think that if we don’t strike when the iron’s hot, so to speak – and then to mix metaphors – the ideas become less ripe.

To me, that was Rok of the Reds, John Wagner and Alan Grant’s amusing graphic novel about an alien who comes to Earth to do some conquering but ends up loving to play soccer instead. It was by no means undercooked – “amusing” is pretty accurate: it was an idea the duo had had for a while but had been unable to successfully pitch, and eventually went the crowd-funding route. Dan Cornwell was a great choice to give the strip some grounding, his style bringing a lot of character to the setting and large cast of characters, but flexible enough to maintain the comic under- (and over-) tones and sci-finess.

This trio of creators return for Rok the God, which posits what happens when you get to take this loose idea, finally see it to life, then… try to nurture it to grow.

On the one hand, everyone’s much more comfortable this time out: Wags and Grant don’t have to take steps to prove the setting (definitely the weakest part of Reds), and can instead focus on how good Rok is at soccer, how much he enjoys it, and how he’s settled into life on Earth and with his adopted family. As that was the meat and potatoes fun stuff in the previous book, giving it most of the spotlight allows for a breezy read. And Cornwell has absolutely grown into his style by this point: while his tight linework and small detailing is not drastically visually different from before, it feels more “his” than a composite of influences, with a much better sense of juggling action and dialogue on a page, and how to apply backgrounds and set-dressing.

On the other hand, the stakes in the first book were kinda hard to sell, and that becomes doubly the case here. It’s a good idea, for sure – Rok, as per the title, ascends to godhood within his culture (but, like, gets godly powers), setting him up to have to juggle offworld politics (and assassins) while trying to play some football – but it never quite settles into something to care about: Rok doesn’t really want the job, and can obliterate people / aliens with new mind powers, so what exactly is the problem here? It reads like something designed from without to act as a plot speedbump as opposed to more organic storytelling, and not to spoil things, but the story’s conclusion / concluding chapter really drives that home; if not for how admittedly breezily enjoyable the prior chapters are, the ending would sink it.

There is definitely something here to keep working at, and so I appreciate that our creators have kept the strip alive, but it’s neither goofy enough or serious enough to bump out of passion project territory. The GN is again well put together, full sized this time and on good, flippable paperstock, with some nice, ominous-looking chapter break pages, and some extra art pieces at the end.