Some months back, a friend referred me to a blog about a new company in Hong Kong called Fluid Friction. They had apparently put together an international team of writers and artists to come out with Hong Kong's first international graphic novel. Intrigued, I checked it out.
The blog was a record of artwork development for a story called DevaShard which was loosely based on the Mahabharata. Not only did the blog capture each stage of the creation of a graphic novel and its characters, but there were even images of the brilliant artwork that was being developed for it. I loved it.
That's why I was excited when I finally got the first book in the series: At First Light. To say the least, it's a feast for the eyes.
Before the comic begins, there's a short note from the Fluid Friction team. It declares that their intent is to create an alternate fantasy world for readers - where one can be immersed in a fantastic story and art.
Do they live up to it? Let's see.
First, the art.
The book portrays quite a variety of settings as the story jumps through time and place. In Rhimn, where it’s a rainy night in a garden lit with green-flamed torches. At Lasan, where everything is made of ice. In Ethaar, where there's a rainforest with a river. Each presents a surrounding that has been carefully thought out by the creators. Pains have been taken to ensure that even the flora and fauna are different.
The ensemble of characters is for the most part humanoid - some have a couple of extra limbs. More interesting, though, are the variations of style and features within these characters. The 5-tailed daemon king has a very east-European face with high cheekbones and long straight hair (and has one blue and one red eye). The voluptuous queen and the charioteer have very distinct Indian features and wouldn't be out of place in some of the current Indian comics. The young prince and the princess have a very 'manga' look to them. Despite these differences, there's a distinct style that blends the characters together. Kudos to the art team for that.
The inking and coloring for each of the panels had been done with painstaking care - with the colors always just supporting, complimenting, and never overshadowing, the finely inked lines. I would love to get my hands on the original artwork of some of the panels.
The 'art' aspect of their goal has definitely been achieved. While the book itself is an easy read, it's the art which keeps the eyes roving over the panels repeatedly, which are at times incredibly detailed.
Now, for the story.
Like the first chapter of any story, At First Light sets the tone and background for a story that is yet to come, introducing characters and giving snippets of events that are as yet not connected. I don't expect to see the main story begin to unfold till the 3rd chapter. But that doesn't mean it's not racy - it is, in fact, quite fast paced.
To help readers get an idea of the story to come, the book has two story overviews. The first is the back cover which tells us that DevaShard is about a boy "who's robbed of his birthright and plunged into a land gripped by darkness" where he must "fight to become a fearsome warrior if he is to survive".
The second is the longer prologue inside. It introduces Bhumi as a magical world and tells us that a war is about to come where mankind's sole hope will be a daemon army. It also introduces "Moonstones", which are portals spread across Bhumi. More importantly, though, it tells us what to expect in terms of a story - which is about two forsaken sons whose lives are destined to be interlinked in a struggle, be tested by adversity and loss, and learn that "some fights, no matter how unjust cannot be walked away from".
My verdict on the story: very promising. The world of Bhumi has a lot of potential and can become a base for several stories like DevaShard.
The last few pages of the comic has brief bios of a few characters and a map of Bhumi. While the map is good for reference, it would have been helpful, especially since this is the first installment, if they had put short bios of some of the characters in this chapter before the story began. Also, it does take some amount of turning back pages to get your bearings - more because the reader needs to get familiar with an entire cast of new characters.
All in all, it's not often that one gets the chance to see the birth of an epic - and a stunner like this one is not to be missed.
You can see the DevaShard blog here and visit the official site here.
