Review: Errant Story, vol. 1
originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]
Errant Story, vol. 1
Published by: Keenspot Entertainment
Writer & Artist: Michael Poe
134 (127) pages.
Original Language: English
Orientation: Left to right
Vintage: June 2004
Rating: 4 out of 5
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Premise: Swords, sorcery, and sarcasm, with healthy doses of ninja-like assassins, gunplay, and humour, a sprinkling of anachronisms and fourth-wall assaults, and a touch more satire and social commentary than you’d expect from what at first blush merely seemed a light-hearted RPG-fantasy-influenced black comedy.
Too wordy? Hm. How about this: Psycho Teen Mage Chick vs the Universe.
Synopsis:
Meet Meji Hinadori. She’s a half elf, a student of magic who is on the verge of graduating from her academy. …at least she would be graduating, if she hadn’t slacked her way through most of the past year and was about to fail miserably. Her only hope is to get an ‘A’ on her senior project. She’s a slacker, not stupid, but her prospects seem pretty dim.
In a flash of inspiration, she recalls an old school rule that states if a student can challenge and defeat the entire school faculty, then they are automatically graduated with honours. Of course, to win out over a whole ivory tower of crotchety old mages, one would need the power of a demigod, at the very least — and with that much power and to spare, the risk of eventually becoming corrupted by it and enslaving the whole world…
Well, Meji is already a tad corrupt, so she decides to make enslaving all reality her senior project. It’s a handy side benefit that she’ll also graduate.
Helping, or at least commenting sarcastically, is Meji’s familiar Ellis, a talking winged cat. Ellis is nigh indestructible, which Meji proves on a fairly regular basis as Ellis’s running commentary usually goads her into blasting the housecat-demon with a handy lightning bolt spell or three.
A quick trip to the school library (and a flashy [*cough*] “divination” spell) provides the lead she needs to actually pull off this mad project, if only it weren’t a continent away and in a country run by mage-hating religious fanatics.
You didn’t think that would stop her, did you? This is just the first chapter.
The rest of volume one follows Meji on her “heroic” quest, and introduces two traveling companions for her. The first, Jon, is a Gewehr Assassin and general bad-ass who becomes a bodyguard of sorts after a rather complicated introduction & re-introduction, and for reasons largely his own; the second is Ian, another mage on a similar (but more noble) quest for knowledge. After a hundred or so pages of action, there is also a little handy exposition toward the end of chapter four, outlining in thumbnail sketch the larger struggles ahead as both the characters and the plot take a necessary breather before volume two.
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Review:
First off, the writing is excellent. Each character’s voice is pitch perfect, the dialog trips along like this was a Whedon or Sorkin TV show, and the fantasy universe being built up here is both true to the form–with elves, mages, talking cats–while simultaneously poking fun at all of the hallowed precepts that are the supposed unshakable foundations of the genre.
It’s a fantasy, but written with modern sensibility. Amazingly, it’s done with almost no pop-culture references; other comics that take this route (and there are quite a few webcomics trying) usually pick a single property to spoof (RPG World, Order of the Stick) or are dropping names and quotes in every other panel so you know (wink wink nudge nudge) that the author is ‘making funny’.
Poe manages to capture that feeling while making it all work within the context of the book. And he also makes the jokes work while he’s doing it. Not only does this give us chuckle-inducing dialog on every other page, it adds to the unique setting of Errant Story: here is a fantasy world as complex, jaded, and absurd as our modern one. It’s high satire, worthy of literary study… though of course it’s also profane, lewd, coarse, crass, and damn damn funny.
I wouldn’t call Errant Story a comedy, though. Action and [*gasp*] story are in full evidence as well. There is a building plot with numerous forces and factions hinted at; though not a classic struggle of good against evil, since it looks like everyone is really just acting in their own self interest. We’ll have to see where all the foreshadowing is leading us in future volumes.
Poe is both writer and artist, and for the most part I can’t fault his artwork either. (go see for yourself at www.errantstory.com) Two issues we run into with the art aren’t faults, per se, but artefacts of the adaptation from screen-to-page. First, all the gutters are black, sort of like the flashback convention adopted by most manga titles. This isn’t bad but rubs me the wrong way, and distracts in some cases from the art on the page. The other thing is that a 1024×768 or 1600×800 monitor is going to give us a lot of lovely fine detail that doesn’t always make it to the 5×8 page, at least not in this printing. Some of our screentones become smudgetones and whole pages roll by where shading isn’t evident at all, and it looks like it was all done in ink. This isn’t bad either, but having seen the computer image originals, I know the book isn’t supposed to come across as that dark, or stylized.
This one is definitely worth seeking out — and it may take a little searching, unless you buy direct from the author — but it comes with my hearty recommendation, and aside from printing issues would have received my highest rating. As it is, I give volume one 4 marks out of 5.
