"Five -- no, three pages into Amulet and you'll be hooked."
-- Jeff Smith, creator of BONE
I ask, dear reader: how could I resist?
Note: while I'll try not to spoil major plot reveals, I recommend if you want to go in fresh that you leave now and come back once you've read the book. If you've already read Amulet, you probably have a much better idea of what I'm talking about!
The Story
Let's see. First, it's your standard kids' portal fantasy: something terrible happens to one or more family members of the protagonist/s and they enter another world filled with magic and wonder but also dangers, a terrible villain and a whole lot of saving to do. So far, so Narnia, so Pan's Labyrinth or anything in between (incidentally, doesn't Jim Henson's Labyrinth qualify as halfway between?).
It doesn't sound like a story that has much new to offer, right?
Wrong.
The Art
Amulet first shows its true potential through use of an evocative, chiefly grey-blue colour palette, shot through with other tones, similarly subdued. This is reflective of the nature of magic in the setting, also quite subtle but beautiful in its own way. Among these styles are characters who, frankly, took a while to grow on me visually. It's hard, for instance, to take the kids' mother's incredibly long head seriously.
But that's all okay, because the design of Amulet's world is the real draw. Already I can't wait to read the next book, because a plethora of giant molluscs, alien elves and intelligent teddy-rabbits show that Kazu Kibuishi tried his darnedest to separate his story from the pack. Along with these Lovecraft-lite monsters and cute robots, the entrance to the magical parallel world of Alledia is a spooky and original opening to Navin and Emily's adventure.
Laid out like a Zelda dungeon with less puzzles, there are the aforementioned molluscs, treacherous cliffs and strange fungi galore to feast your eyes upon. Then, we reach Charnon House in the middle of an underground lake. I can just taste the promise: every new location suggesting mystery, then when explored, new horizons are revealed. Kibuishi must have been taking notes from Tolkien for that one.
And this is all without mentioning the magic and technology. There are the robots like Miskit, flying machines, the actual house -- whose true nature I will leave for you to discover -- mixed in with the mysterious sorceries of the elf prince and the titular Amulet.
The Setup
We have to face it. This book is an adventure, certainly, but like all first books its true purpose is to introduce the struggle and enchant the reader; make them want to read more. There are plenty of interesting threads premiered -- the biggest of course is that Navin and Emily need to save their mother -- but of them all I was struck the most by the nature of the Amulet.
It's the primary plot device: the source of magic for the protagonists and apparently the means of defeating the Big Bad Guy, the Elf King. But immediately, it is treated with as much ominousness as it is with promise.
This is not your typical plot pendant, it's actually more like the use of alchemy in Fullmetal Alchemist. That is, for a story ostensibly directed at children, the magic of the Amulet is more ambiguous than usual. We're telegraphed from the word go that things are going to go wrong. Will Emily suffer a terrible fate for having bound herself to the Amulet? Are the protagonists even the "good guys" that Silas makes them seem in the first place? Such ambiguity is tantalising and I look forward to where Navin and Emily's adventure takes them next.
The One Big Con
Alas, very few if any stories are perfect and the rule is upheld with Amulet. You might think I have nothing but praise because it pushes all the right buttons on my story brain, and to a certain extent I thought that too. Except that there's one aspect of Amulet: The Stonekeeper that I cannot stand, and it's the pacing.
Now I'll be the first to admit that I absorb comic books in a less-than-ideal manner. Despite my love of visual art, my more primal reading tendencies take over. My eyes snap from balloon to balloon to eat as much of the story as possible, regarding the rest only so much as I might notice the paragraph breaks in a novel. Paradoxically, this means I occasionally take longer to finish a comic book because I like to go back and actually take in the illustrations properly.
Yet, even I noticed that the panels, page after page, were dreadfully decompressed.
I have nothing against decompressed comics per se. I just believe that manipulating the passage of time is a technique to be used across all comics. I'd go so far as to say that deliberately slow comics are less accomplished narratively than those that use a diversity of panel numbers, sizes and representations of time.
Amulet: The Stonekeeper covers maybe one third of the ground that Out from Boneville does and it does it with fifty pages more. That's two whole issues of a regular magazine comic! This is like one of those two hour movies that you just wish could have been edited to ninety minutes. True, when the inevitable Amulet movie is developed they could probably use these decompressed panels as storyboards, but that doesn't help when there's really only enough story content to fill two episodes of a half-hour cartoon.
Okay, that last part used a lot of comparisons to other media. Let's stick with comics: Amulet: The Stonekeeper feels like the beginning of an arc, not an entire arc unto itself. It's a proof-of-concept, and a great one. But that doesn't excuse it for taking its sweet, sweet time getting the story to where it needs to be for Book Two.
The Verdict
Well, I should probably start coming up with a rating system if I'm going to actually review stuff. Amulet is off to an exciting start and if the pace improves, it could easily be one of my favourite fantasy comics (there don't seem to be that many around, do there?).
Amulet: The Stonekeeper
3.5 / 5
It doesn't sound like a story that has much new to offer, right?
Wrong.
The Art
Amulet first shows its true potential through use of an evocative, chiefly grey-blue colour palette, shot through with other tones, similarly subdued. This is reflective of the nature of magic in the setting, also quite subtle but beautiful in its own way. Among these styles are characters who, frankly, took a while to grow on me visually. It's hard, for instance, to take the kids' mother's incredibly long head seriously.
But that's all okay, because the design of Amulet's world is the real draw. Already I can't wait to read the next book, because a plethora of giant molluscs, alien elves and intelligent teddy-rabbits show that Kazu Kibuishi tried his darnedest to separate his story from the pack. Along with these Lovecraft-lite monsters and cute robots, the entrance to the magical parallel world of Alledia is a spooky and original opening to Navin and Emily's adventure.
Laid out like a Zelda dungeon with less puzzles, there are the aforementioned molluscs, treacherous cliffs and strange fungi galore to feast your eyes upon. Then, we reach Charnon House in the middle of an underground lake. I can just taste the promise: every new location suggesting mystery, then when explored, new horizons are revealed. Kibuishi must have been taking notes from Tolkien for that one.
And this is all without mentioning the magic and technology. There are the robots like Miskit, flying machines, the actual house -- whose true nature I will leave for you to discover -- mixed in with the mysterious sorceries of the elf prince and the titular Amulet.
The Setup
We have to face it. This book is an adventure, certainly, but like all first books its true purpose is to introduce the struggle and enchant the reader; make them want to read more. There are plenty of interesting threads premiered -- the biggest of course is that Navin and Emily need to save their mother -- but of them all I was struck the most by the nature of the Amulet.
It's the primary plot device: the source of magic for the protagonists and apparently the means of defeating the Big Bad Guy, the Elf King. But immediately, it is treated with as much ominousness as it is with promise.
This is not your typical plot pendant, it's actually more like the use of alchemy in Fullmetal Alchemist. That is, for a story ostensibly directed at children, the magic of the Amulet is more ambiguous than usual. We're telegraphed from the word go that things are going to go wrong. Will Emily suffer a terrible fate for having bound herself to the Amulet? Are the protagonists even the "good guys" that Silas makes them seem in the first place? Such ambiguity is tantalising and I look forward to where Navin and Emily's adventure takes them next.
The One Big Con
Alas, very few if any stories are perfect and the rule is upheld with Amulet. You might think I have nothing but praise because it pushes all the right buttons on my story brain, and to a certain extent I thought that too. Except that there's one aspect of Amulet: The Stonekeeper that I cannot stand, and it's the pacing.
Now I'll be the first to admit that I absorb comic books in a less-than-ideal manner. Despite my love of visual art, my more primal reading tendencies take over. My eyes snap from balloon to balloon to eat as much of the story as possible, regarding the rest only so much as I might notice the paragraph breaks in a novel. Paradoxically, this means I occasionally take longer to finish a comic book because I like to go back and actually take in the illustrations properly.
Yet, even I noticed that the panels, page after page, were dreadfully decompressed.
I have nothing against decompressed comics per se. I just believe that manipulating the passage of time is a technique to be used across all comics. I'd go so far as to say that deliberately slow comics are less accomplished narratively than those that use a diversity of panel numbers, sizes and representations of time.
Amulet: The Stonekeeper covers maybe one third of the ground that Out from Boneville does and it does it with fifty pages more. That's two whole issues of a regular magazine comic! This is like one of those two hour movies that you just wish could have been edited to ninety minutes. True, when the inevitable Amulet movie is developed they could probably use these decompressed panels as storyboards, but that doesn't help when there's really only enough story content to fill two episodes of a half-hour cartoon.
Okay, that last part used a lot of comparisons to other media. Let's stick with comics: Amulet: The Stonekeeper feels like the beginning of an arc, not an entire arc unto itself. It's a proof-of-concept, and a great one. But that doesn't excuse it for taking its sweet, sweet time getting the story to where it needs to be for Book Two.
The Verdict
Well, I should probably start coming up with a rating system if I'm going to actually review stuff. Amulet is off to an exciting start and if the pace improves, it could easily be one of my favourite fantasy comics (there don't seem to be that many around, do there?).
Amulet: The Stonekeeper
3.5 / 5
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