Advance Review: Honor and Curse #1 (of 6)

An orphaned boy seeks the means to fight injustice, forging his body into a weapon, to serve and to protect all that he cares about.Â No, this isn’t Bruce Wayne; this is Genshi, orphaned in a bandit attack and adopted into the Iga clan.

From small acorns, big trees doth grow and Genshi has managed to put most of his pastÂ behind him.Â Now studying to become a shinobi, he has aspirations of marrying his Lord’s daughter, the beautiful Akemi.Â Still with dreams, there must also be nightmares, in this case an evil mountain spirit seeks to haunt our young hero, bending reality in an effort to consume him and turn him into an unstoppable force of nature, with no sense of remorse.

Mad Cave founder and writer Mark London takes us all the way back to feudal Japan for this tale that features recognisable elements from a variety of sources including the doomed romance of Shakespeare, The Water Margin and more recently Into the Badlands to some extent.Â As these are new characters, London uses said familiarity well, which helps the reader take what is offered at face value.Â The starting at the possible end of the story and bringing us up to speed is an oft used method, which is great for world building, but does effectively remove and real tension of cliff hanger moments prior to that point.Â All the stereotypical characters are in here from the disapproving father, the funny yet loyal friend and the winsome love dedicated to the demonically determined young hero.Â London shows some real skill in his writing as despite the obvious tropes in play, there is an element of freshness to be found.

The art is provided by NicolasÂ Salamanca whose work has a rawness to it that is indicative of the manga style that it appears he is channeling.Â Salamanca displays a sound knowledge and skill when it comes to panels featuring one person, balancing the required dramatic need with some strong pencils.Â However, that level of detail is lacking when it comes to a number of the group panels, where poses lose their movement and look too one dimensional.Â This is shame as Salamanca also works hard on panel layout, using a mix of them in order to drive home the importance of certain events within the story.Â Facial elements are quite focused, though the introduction of the demon allows Salamanca to add more than a little darkness to proceedings.Â Tekino supplies the colorÂ for the book.Â If there is one thing I notice, one big difference between main publisher books and the independent market it is the fact that smaller press booksÂ do not seem to have the ability to add texture to their digital colors.Â As such, no matter how hard Tekino tries, at times there is no real nuance to the scheme used.Â Of course, with elements of horror featured, Tekino does get to play with reds and blacks effectively.Â Finally, Miguel Angel Zapata applies a design element to the letters, differentiating between the emotional and demonic aspects well.

This period of Japan garners a lot of fans and the quality of this book will do little to dissuade those from joining Genshi in his battle, both within and without.

Writing – 3.5 Stars
Art – 3.5 Stars
Colors – 3 Stars

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Written by; Mark London
Art by; Nicolas Salamanca
Colors by; Tekino
Letters by; Miguel Angel Zapata
Published by; Mad Cave Studios

In Shops: Feb 20, 2019
Diamond Code:Â DEC181951

Author Profile

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow

Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network