REVIEW: ROOK #1

Rook #1
Written byÂ Steven Grant
Art byÂ Paul Gulacy
Colors byÂ Nate Piekos of BLAMBOT
Published byÂ Dark Horse

Not long ago I realized that the easiest way to complicate a story is to add time travel to it. It“s amazing really. Time travel pretty much finds a way to muck everything up for everyone. Â While I would love for someone show me that traveling through time would solve some problems, it might be getting even harder because the team behind Rook just piled some more time travel mess into my pile of evidence.

Personally, I have really high expectations for the first issue of a four part miniseries. At least in my mind, it should contain enough information for me to understand the conflict, get to know the characters, and compel me to come back the next month. In an attempt to accomplish these things, quite a bit is thrown at the reader. The dialogue of Rook is quite verbose and quite a few times I found myself pausing to think about how much of it is really necessary to move the story forward or flesh out characters. Looking back there are a few times where this prove necessary but I would have liked to have seen those pages balanced with some that allowed the art to do some of the story telling.

The art of Rook is cooky and a bit creepy at times which does match the strange nature of the story. That said, I do feel that the collaboration between the colorist Jesus Arbuto and artist Paul Gulacy feels a bit disjointed. Though skillful, Arbuto“s color scheme doesn“t seem to match the mood that story“s tone. Piekos again shows us all what it means to excel at lettering. I applaud his methods of direction and ability to compliment the other visual elements of the book. Â

Overall, I feel as though Rook will be a fun adventure, but not one that I would like to watch unfold as a monthly title. Perhaps it will be more rewarding of a tale in trade.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Author Profile

Mitchell Doig

Mitchell is co-host of the Comic Book City Podcast and a contributor to the Comic Crusaders website. Some of his favorite monthly pulls are: Letter 44, Southern Bastards, Lazarus, The Fade Out, Chew, Material, and East of West. When he isn't writing, he spends some of his time lettering and flatting comic books and is probably available for hire.