Let me tell you a story. In a world called Zenescope there lived four brave writers who decided to collaborate on one 24 page comic. Wait, hold on a second; four writers? Yup, that’s right. Four authors and five boobtastic covers. It’s starting to sound like your average Zenescope book, but is it good?
Quest #1 (Zenescope Entertainment)
There are four authors on this book, four authors! But here’s the deal: only one of them actually scripts the comic, the rest of them just help with story. I’m not sure how that creative process would work…does everyone just talk about the book until they reach a story everyone is reasonably pleased with, or does every author get a couple of pages each? Either way, the story is pretty weak. Our heroes are banded together in a completely uninspiring and downright uninteresting way; and I’m not even sure what happened the rest of the book. I think that we’re just supposed to understand that this is a “quest” and it is of great importance.
Although this may be a journey of epic proportions—and it might be that some of the things that the characters do are just incredible—nothing seems to have any weight. And it’s not like the author (the one who writes the script, Pat Shand) isn’t trying to make everything seem dramatic. He is; in fact everything comes across as way too dramatic, making the comic sound incredibly forced and cheesy.
And let’s talk about characters, why don’t we? This is your average “band of misfits,” nothing more, nothing less. We have your classic “honorable but outcast” knight, type guy who really adds nothing to the story. There’s the “drunk but witty” dwarf (mark my words, he’s going to bite it before the series ends). There’s of course there’s the rebel tough girl and her polar opposite: the by-the-books, intelligent, spell casting witch. None of these characters are interesting, they are all just copies of archetypes we have seen beaten bloody by overuse. Even the dwarf (who reminds me a lot of the one created in Thor #13 like two months ago) who could, with some fantastic writing, manage to be somewhat interesting, has nothing to say that would hold the attention of the even most devoted Zenescope reader.
Although the cover suggests that this story takes place during “The Age of Darkness” there is nothing dark about this book at all. Every page is bright and colorful giving the comic the absolute wrong tone and mood. If you want true darkness, look elsewhere.
Aside from mishaps with coloring the illustrations stand well enough on their own. And save the rare wonky face the pencils are fine. The only real problem with the art is the usual Zenescope problem: the fact that every woman in the comic is oversexualized. It’s a problem, it’s part of the reason why there aren’t as many women reading comics. I know that’s like the Zenescope way, but come on, let’s grow up here.
The writing is kind of bland and melodramatic. Again, everything is made so emotional that we just don’t have the ability to enjoy any of the banter.
1.0
- Pencils are adequate
- Wait, there’s a story?
- Overused characters used again
- Too happy looking for the Age of Darkness
Is It Good?
As a great man once said:
“They asked me to rate my pain. Five stars! Two enthusiastic thumbs up!”
This comic was a waste of my time, how should I be asked if it’s good? By the way, that great man was Brian Regan.
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