Written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir
Art by Jennifer Quick
160 pages, black and white
Published by Oni Press
As comic books increase their presence in bookstores, it’s interesting to see which companies already seem poised to make great strides into this new market. Take, by way of example, Oni Press’s new book Once in a Blue Moon. Appealing to teenager readers both male and female, it’s a perfect example of a book which should get noticed by a lot of this new audience reading comics. Mind you, Oni’s been publishing this sort of book for years now; it’s just the latest example of the marketplace finally catching up with them.
Aeslin’s parents used to read The Avalon Chronicles to her every night as a child, telling stories of the female Dragon Knight who saved all of Avalon from the forces of evil. Then Aeslin’s father died, and her mother put the book away, never to be read again. Now Aeslin’s a teenager, and she’s just come across a sequel to The Avalon Chronicles, titled Once in a Blue Moon. The Sorcerer Khrom’s forces have taken over Avalon and the kingdom is in ruins. Oh, and now Aeslin’s trapped inside the book to boot. Things are definitely not going well for Aeslin or Avalon.
Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir’s Once in a Blue Moon has a familiar pattern to it, with a young protagonist from our world getting pulled into a fantasy realm where they are the key to saving the land from evil. What struck me was not so much the basic idea behind the book, which I thought was full of pretty stereotypical characters, but the little details. The idea that Once in a Blue Moon splits its story behind our world and Avalon is a nice one; so often storylines in the real world get abandoned as soon as the narrative shifts universes. The role that Aeslin’s mother plays is a nice one as well; I appreciated that she’s not only got a life outside of being Aeslin’s mother, but an important one in the real world. Most importantly, it’s nice that Aeslin is proceeding in short, cautious steps in saving Avalon; it’s much more realistic and it makes you want to see what’s going to happen next.
Jennifer Quick’s art has a scratchy quality to it, with thick ink lines forming characters’s faces. It’s a rough sort of look, one that reminds me a lot of manga artists. The frustrating thing is that the characters have a nice basic look, but they’ve all got a generic sort of look to them; if you put them in the same outfits it would be hard to tell them all apart. I also would’ve been happier with some more backgrounds in the panels; speed lines or nothing at all seems to show up a little too often for my tastes in some of the smaller panels. The storytelling isn’t bad, but I do wish that the interiors looked as slick and polished as the cover. It’s by far the nicest piece of art in Once in a Blue Moon, and it’s a little disappointing that the rest just doesn’t live up to the promise of the cover.
Once in a Blue Moon Vol. 1 is a good, but not great start to this new series. I like what DeFilippis and Weir are doing to set their story apart from others of the same genre, and I think that Quick has some real promise, even if the art isn’t quite there for me. There’s enough going for me that I’ll take a look at a second volume to see where it goes from here. Hopefully we’ll see more twists in the story and some improvement in the art, because if we get both of those I think the series could be good to go. For now, though, I’ll cautiously await any future installments.
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