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Venge
#1
Part One
1/MAR/2004
Publisher: Henri Art Studio
Writer: Henri Roberts
Art: Henri Roberts
Letters: Henri Roberts
Price: R140.00 SA
Website: www.vengecomic.com
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One of the biggest events in local [South African]
comics over the past few months has to be this books release. Cape
Town’s own Henri Roberts releases a full
color, top of the line piece of production that’s
sure to garner lots of attention in the local as well as
international comics scene.
A confused and slightyly deformed man awakens in Brooklyn, New
York in the year 2020. He stumbles across a burglary and
is accosted by the Police. One grisly fight later and two officers
are down and in hospital and the hunt has begun. Venge is on the
run from the powers that be, but he must still find out who disfigured
him and what exactly has happened to him. The police and locals
soon confuse him for a stalker who has been murdering people in
the area and his life gets that much more complicated…
Venge is brought to us by the extraordinary efforts
of a one man army, namely Henri Roberts, putting
his heart and soul into not only the tremendous art we see in this
book but also the writing and lettering. Due to the fact that Roberts
basically did everything on this book there are bound to be some
areas of strength and some of weakness.
This book doesn’t excel on the writing side of things. The
story comes across in a somewhat disjointed one in parts and the
dialogue seems way too sparse in a lot of scenes. Venge
himself comes across as a mixture between Spawn and Batman
and has dialogue which consists of mostly two word answers and one
liners. With the protagonist set up in this manner the story could
have been aided by a narrative voice to help keep it moving and
to aid in keeping it from feeling disjointed by the lack of meaningful
dialogue.
There is one scene in particular in which Roberts’
writing potential shines out. Within the middle of this
first issue he explains in great detail, and with much interest,
some of the changes and history of his futuristic New York setting.
However this snippet is too short in length and seems to sit uneasily
amongst the almost super-slow paced scenes revolving around Venge
himself. Overall I feel that the story could do with a little more
connection between scenes and a lot more work on the dialogue, which
comes across as stock standard ‘moody anti-hero’ stuff.
If Roberts struggles a bit on the writing side he sure makes up
for it when it comes to the art. This book is a marvel to look at.
Fully painted pages in glorious full color all wrapped up in an
oversized format which really helps when it comes to enjoying the
art. The choice and quality of a full color glossy oversized
book is a stroke of genius as it helps to separate the
quality of Roberts work from that of other independent creators
and helps to sell the book as a class piece of merchandise. So many
South African comic creators can learn from this, I know it’s
expensive, but when you see this book on the shelf it just spells
out ‘quality and class’ all the way, well done!
The one real downfall on the artistic side of things would
have to be Roberts lettering skills. Venge has had an awfully
outdated and mostly illegible font chosen for his dialogue and his
speech balloons are colored with an over the top orange gradient
background color. Sure it helps to make his text stand out on the
page, sure it helps us to see he’s the main character but
really it just seems to cheapen the work as a whole. Another strange
lettering choice was to ‘paint in’ all of the sound
effects. This really didn’t look right to me as the mix between
painted and vector/computer lettering left a lot to be desired visually
and separated the art from the lettering hugely to create a jarring
effect on the eye.
Roberts seems to focus on his primary character a little too much
in his artwork and it shows as his secondary cast comes out looking
the worst for wear, Venge himself is masterfully drawn and
painted and has every little muscle fiber and detail perfectly rendered
but perhaps all that time spent on his character design has left
little aside to attend to his supporting cast.
This book is an awesome achievement in itself and
even more so if you think that it’s done mostly by one man.
It’s a huge step forward in quality-driven South African comics
and makes me proud to see this kind of production come out of my
homeland.
The story could do with some work but it’s still a solid enough
read and Roberts has the ability to leave the reader with some dangling
hooks for the next issue. This is a great artistic effort with painstaking
attention given to the main character. Support local comics and
grab this book, not just because I said so or because it’s
South African, but because it’s a top quality piece
of work that is worthy of your attention.
Score 7/10
Reviewed By:Iain Duncan
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Comic Reviews
