Death, Folktales, and Bunnies
To start with I think the best thing I like about this comic book is it's done by not only a female artist, but a female writer too. You don't really get to see a female creative team doing comic as much. another reason I wanted to get this was for the concept of Death (the Reaper). I'm not a dark person in real life, but I'm very interested in concepts of Death and how other people view them. Hence why Death from Sandman is possibly my favorite female comic book character. This version for Death was interesting to see him with a rabbit skull for a head set in the west.
The writing and art was an interesting choice for this book. At times the story confused me, but if you read it as poetry and look for symbolism it makes more sense. For instance not sure if anyone else pick it up or not, but almost every character had an animal counterpart. If you know a thing or to about what each animal symbolizes the story is a little more clear. I'm hoping the second volume goes more into that concept.
The art in my opinion is GORGEOUS! I would say each panel is like an art piece. Love how she spends so much time on the textural detail of things, especially with the animals. It gave the book a vintage type of feel to it as well, like the art style you'd see from the 50s. Sometime I did forget I was reading an Image comic and thought I was reading a Vertigo comic. The art reminded me of stuff from Fables, Sandman, and Unwritten at times.
As I said abut the animal symbolism, I think the writer was going for an American folklore/tall tale type of fell to the comic. For me it fell like one of those things. It also reminded me of Paradise Lost in some way. Not so much with the plot and the characters, but more for the why it's written like an epic poem about death.
If you're like me and a sucker for good art in comic books, this won't disappoint you. However if you're looking for a story that's not complicated you might get turned off by this book. Give this some time though, I think these ladies know where they're going with this.