When I was thirteen years old I was able to travel to Tanzania for three months with my family. It was an amazing experience. We met some great people, saw some amazing sights, and of course we saw a whole bunch of wildlife, and believe me when I say that The Lion King doesn’t do it justice.
I bring this up because this week’s comic is set near that particular part of the world and shows a lot of the beauty and kindness that it has to offer while drawing attention to the danger and social problems facing southern and eastern Africa today.
Written by Matt Hawkns, Ryan Cady, and Paul FeinsteinCover by: Stjepan Sejic
Illustrated by Atilio Rojo
Lettered by Troy Peteri
Illegal poaching is a billion-dollar industry, a black market trade violently interwoven with the bloody work of warlords and international traffickers. South African industrial heir Noah Ehran has dedicated himself to battling this evil on two fronts, in two separate lives. By day, he’s an environmental lobbyist and aggressive corporate reformer-but by night, Noah leads A.R.C., the Animal Rights Collective , in an armed crusade against the criminal empires responsible!
Poaching is a very real, and very dangerous, problem in Africa today. There is a black market worth billions of dollars for goods like elephant ivory, rhino horn, and exotic game and in a part of the world where a lot of people live off less than a dollar a day, the temptation to hunt endangered species for a massive payday is a strong one. You would think these poachers would be limited by said poverty to only hunt a few animals at a time but sadly, poaching operations have grown incredibly sophisticated with equipment like attack helicopters and modern weapons, and incredibly ruthless with poachers killing game wardens and the people protecting the wildlife with little to no remorse.
“A.R.C” #1 follows the life and exploits of Noah Ehran, a fictional South African industrialist who splits his time between raising funds to protect the wildlife of southern Africa and leading a paramilitary group called the Animal Rights Collective and fighting poaching operations on their terms with lots of firepower and political maneuvering.
“A.R.C” #1 is an extra sized one shot comic written by Matt Hawkins, Ryan Cady, and Paul Feinstein who all come together to create an interesting and engaging book. Right off the bat the story delves into the violence and blood of the world Noah and his friends and colleagues inhabit and doesn’t shy away from showing a mountain of elephant carcasses or how lethal and organized the poachers can be. However, the comic does a great job of stepping away from the blood and violence and weaving a much more nuanced and complicated tapestry of political maneuvering, publicity, and off the books intel gathering. On top of that, Noah is a great protagonist who is definitely a good man, but he’s not above getting his hands dirty or making deals with shady characters in order to get the job done. It’s a story that excels at showing the reader the big picture and if you’re interested in learning more about anti poaching efforts in Africa, this is a good place to start.
While “A.R.C” #1 is great at big picture storytelling, it does suffer a bit when it comes to the smaller, more emotional moments. Without spoiling too much, there is a story thread in the book that involves a child soldier who used to work for the poachers and is captured by Noah and A.R.C. This young kid has to undergo an absolutely brutal heroin withdrawal and somehow put the pieces of his life together after a lifetime of violence and bloodshed, and the comic only gives the audience a handful of pages to see how he’s doing. All that’s left to say is that the book could have probably benefited from either being a full on graphic novel or a limited series to give the readers more time to bond with the characters and see how and why they behave the way they do.
The artwork for “A.R.C” #1 is provided by Atilio Rojo, and while it doesn’t leap off the page or elevate the story to new and better heights, it does its job perfectly well and doesn’t get in the way of enjoying the book. Rojo’s pencils have a very thin line and don’t focus on promoting a lot of features in the background or on the characters, which makes the whole book feel like it was drawn very quickly. On top of that, the colors have a sort of water color feel to them, giving the book a light and almost hazy feel that doesn’t distract from the story, but it does take away from the gravitas of a lot of the heavier and more impactful moments. All of this, coupled with the lack of background details in a lot of the smaller panels, makes the book very easy to read and very easy to figure out what’s going on, but it comes across as a book that places more of an emphasis on function over form and feels like most of the effort on this book went into the script.
“A.R.C” #1 is a solid, fascinating, and well written comic about a very real issue and sheds a light on how big the problem really is and what is being done to stop it. It’s got some good ideas, good characters, plenty of intrigue and violence, and is definitely worth checking out.
Final Verdict: 7.9- A good book about a real life problem that doesn’t rock the boat or push a lot of boundaries, but it’s an engaging and entertaining read.
