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Sojourn
Vol.1 – From The Ashes
Reprints [Prequel, 1-6]
2002
Publisher: Crossgen
Writer: Ron Marz
Pencils: Greg Land
Inks: Drew Geraci
Colors: Caesar Rodriguez
Letters: Troy Peteri
Price: $19.95 US/R300.00 SA
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As a passionate reader of fantasy novels I decided to grab a copy
of this trade about four months ago. I saw some of Greg
Land’s artwork a while back and had decided to give
the title a shot, at the time it was Crossgens’ premier title.
After the dark warlord Mordath is resurrected from
the dead he takes over The Five Lands. He makes one mistake however,
he kills the husband and child of the archer Arwyn,
now she is determined to see him killed and order restored to the
five lands.
The biggest surprise upon reading this trade was most definitely
the gripping story. I knew the art would be stunning but I had reservations
as to whether the story would be able to match up, I was pleasantly
surprised.
Ron Marz [The Path, Scion]
weaves an intelligent fantasy tale with a touch of action, a light
sprinkling of reality and a pinch of humour for good measure. This
is easily the best ‘fantasy epic’ comic I have come
across and is reminiscent of the great fantasy ‘Epic Quest’
novels of our time.
Marz employs a great storytelling technique which really helps to
connect the reader with the main two characters, namely Arwyn
and Gareth. He tells the story by using Gareth as the main
narrator, which helps as to not only get an idea of what drives
Arwyn but too also get a refreshed perspective from inside Gareth’s
head. It’s also a great way to keep Arwyn’s thoughts
even more of a mystery.
The main storyline is pretty straightforward and very much like
any other fantasy novel of its kind. If you are looking for some
amazing, off the beaten track fantasy series, then this isn’t
it, however as far as solid quest-based fantasy in comics goes,
you can’t get any better than Sojourn.
The artwork by Greg Land and company is breath-taking.
As I said earlier it’s what drew me to Sojourn in the first
place. Land renders figures and action scenes in a painfully detailed
and realistic fashion. You can quite simply look at his images for
hours and still be awestruck by their realism and beauty.
I only had two bad points to mention about this first Sojourn volume
and they don’t really stand out as ‘bad’ I guess,
but I just noticed them as ‘sore’ points. The first
point would have to be the stilted poses of many of the Troll figures
in the book. This seems to give an almost static feel to many of
the action scenes. The Trolls just seems to be frozen in position
and not dynamic or flowing enough during the fight scenes. Perhaps
this was meant to appear that way as due to their size they would
be slow and cumbersome and next to the athleticism of Arwyn and
Gareth they might even look more stilted and giant-like when moving.
The second sore point I had with the art was that the characters
look too clean-cut and perfect. The degradation of clothes and skin
due to battles etc. does appear, but not to the extent one would
imagine. It would be great for scars and scrapes, soiled clothes
and cuts to be more apparent and persistent either through the use
of more textures in the colouring processes or in the pencilling
stages.
This book took me by surprise by adding a truly great story
to already exquisite artwork. All in all Sojourn
is a great read and the best fantasy based comic I have read all
year.
Score 9/10
Reviewed By:Iain Duncan
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Comic Reviews
