Title: Klaw, The First Cycle
Author:
Antoine Ozanam
Contributors: Joel Jurion, Yoann Guille, Mike Kennedy
Genre:
Graphic Novel, Young Adult, Fantasy, Superhero*, Paranormal* (*ish - there are shifters of various types and somewhat of a superhero origin story.)
Series: Klaw (#1-3)
A
few starting notes:
I
received a free digital review copy of this book via NetGalley.
NetGalley provides review copies from publishers in exchange for fair
and honest reviews.
This looked interesting - shape-shifting and all that jazz! (Woo!)
Plus the cover rocked, and covers are usually a good indication of graphic novel rock-itude.
Premise:
Angel Tomassini is about to learn a few truths - one is about his father, and his father's business.
The other... well, the other is about shape-shifters.
It's going to get interesting.
Best
bits:
There were parts of this with a superhero origin-vibe. Which I kind of dug - it's nice to see superheroes who aren't the property of Marvel or DC.
And it didn't over-shadow the character-driven aspects (character-driven superhero story? Hallelujah!)
The artwork was adequate - verging on rockin' in places - and the character design in particular really shone through.
I loved the way that the post-shape-shifting animal-people looked - the tiger in particular (which as the tiger is the focus here, is a good job too!)
The shape-shifting is based on the Chinese zodiac - which was a nice twist, and added another layer to the whole deal-y. :)
And I liked Angel - a likeable protagonist with the right level of gung-ho stupidity to fit the storyline, but not make you want to throw things at him repeatedly.
Not
so great bits:
There were moments when I was a little lost as to what the hell was going on. Brief, but mentionable.
And there was much blood and violence. It's more comic-style than anything, but it's definitely noticeable.
I can't remember any swearing... but there might've been some tucked in there somewhere.
My bug-bear here is a big time-jump in the middle, which I felt was fairly unnecessary.
Also, some of the supporting characters were a little thin-on-depth for my liking.
The girl - whose name I can't remember - was pretty much the only female character of note, and was disappointingly flimsy, all-in-all.
Verdict:
This was an interesting take on so many tried-and-tested tropes.
I enjoyed it, I just would really have preferred some stronger roles for female characters.
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Seems like an enjoyable graphic novel but that at times you also had a few issues with the narrative and really being able to follow the story. It sounds like the drawings were okay but I really like the superhero vibe a lot and the whole idea of shapeshifters too!
ReplyDeleteIt was pretty good, all in all :)
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