Dark Souls. A game infamous for its cult following and immense, almost arcane, wealth of lore behind it. There have been a few attempts at translating the source material into a comic before, some with more success than others, but now Ryan O’Sullivan, Anton Kokarev, and Simon Bowland set out to map the age just before the first game, the Age of Fire. Will their tale be one to prove that Dark Souls can thrive in other mediums?
Written by Ryan O’Sullivan
Illustrated by Anton Kokarev
Lettered by Simon BowlandTying directly into the very first critically-acclaimed Dark Souls videogame, featuring all the main characters!
Return to the very beginnings of the Dark Souls story with a dramatic retelling of the Legends of Gwyn – Lord of Cinder and Knight Artorias!
The problem with bringing the Dark Souls property in the past is that people haven’t been able to identify what separates it from your standard Dungeons and Dragons affair. I may not have the definitive answer on that, but it seems like Ryan O’Sullivan has a good take on it and embraces it in his script here. What makes the world of Dark Souls so unique is that there is general sense of unease cloaked over the world, and that is because there are no characters inhabiting this world that are inherently good. Sullivan understands this and embraces it in his protagonist, the Silver Knight Arkon. He’s dishonestly earned the title of Dragonkiller, having been the only knight present when Gwyn saw the fallen dragon that Knight Artorias had effortlessly slain. We see Sullivan focusing on Arkon’s guilt at claiming this victory throughout the whole story, as it seems to embody his every interaction throughout the text. Sullivan has widely chosen to focus this story through Arkon’s eyes, as it gives the reader the same guilt and distrust of others, the closest a comic has come to capturing the game’s tone of disquiet.
Move the scope out a little further, and you see that Sullivan has also taken some care in building the world around from Arkon. As I said, we are primarily seeing the world through his eyes, so his perceptions infect our own to help us understand it better. When we see the Lord of Sunlight Gwyn, Sullivan holds back on his dialogue and interactions with the others, giving him a more godlike feel as if he doesn’t consider lesser beings worth conversing with. Arkon generally watches him while stunned and action-less, further pushing Gwyn’s status. The final capstone is when we here Gwyn’s one line of dialogue being of praise to Arkon, and the narration states how it is the ‘greatest gift Arkon would e’er receive’. We also feel Arkon’s general distrust of Channeler Liste, a character who’s condescending tone towards Arkon gives readers the same feeling of the character without ever heavily delving into his backstory or motivations. Sullivan has used this focalisation on the flawed Arkon cleverly not just to establish a complex protagonist, but to give us a way of viewing the Dark Souls world and understanding it not through walls of text, but unique character interactions.
The only thing that I’m mostly mixed about is how the story handles motivation and narrative direction. This issue, like all series debuts, has the tricky job of managing plot and story introduction, and which deserves more real estate. Sullivan spends more time developing the world and characters, which for the most part I find interesting and compelling. We see Arkon exploring different aspects of the Dark Souls world Lordran, from the Unformed World, to the castle Anor Londo itself, and it’s a great way to give this comic a feeling of grandeur in its scope. My only issue is that while traversing these areas, for the most part, Arkon’s motivation is unclear and murky, only seeming to exist as a sort of policing knight. We only get a sense of drive and moving plot in the last four pages in Anor Londo, when Arkon learns about an upcoming mission to Izalith to expunge it of demons and dark magic. Even then, the details are decidedly vague – perhaps for the best, because it shows us that even the Silver Knights themselves aren’t versed on this enemy, but it makes it hard to envision a narrative goal for the characters. It’s not a huge problem since the character and world building benefits greatly, but it does make most of the issue feel somewhat directionless.
Continued belowAnton Kokarev handles complete art duties here, and uses a complex painterly style well suited to adapting this dark world and its inhabitants. What I love best about it is how stripped back most of the detailing is, echoing the loneliness of the video games. Kokarev doesn’t pile hordes of civilians into streets, or unnecessary detailing into the background. Everything in these panels serves a storytelling purpose. The Unformed World looks stunningly primordial in this sense, being a setting composed mostly of stark grey pillars reaching to the sky, depressingly grey weather and scattering of dragons throughout to make it even more threatening. The Grand Archives’ Sewer invokes a similar feeling, with the sewer corridors seemingly stretching on infinitely, an effect entirely believable thanks to Kokarev’s use of grey misty textures. When we see the Channelers pop up in this setting, it’s terrifying as they seem to fill the endless narrow corridors, giving us a claustrophobic feel that is echoed in Arkon. Every environment is beautifully effective in its simplicity, contributing to the sense of wonder yet still holding onto that nagging unease.
Kokarev does some solid figure work throughout this issue. One aspect of the games that contributes to the uneasy tone is that characters move with a weightiness and solid feel, never darting across the screen or jumping around with ease. This is replicated in Kokarev’s art, mostly to the comics benefit. Arkon himself walks with a stoic gait, something which is more definite in his character defining moment at the introduction, but remains present in his actions throughout the rest of the tale. The only part of Kokarev’s work I find a little iffy is the rendering of human faces. Luckily most of the characters are masked or shadowed behind facial hair, but there are a few moments in the Lower Ward scene that suffer for this. Dragon Knight Gravis seems to bear the same determined grin/smile in most of his panels, with his head somehow at a constant angle, but the biggest issue shows up when the messenger comes for Arkon. His face appears lumpy and in anguish, although he’s delivering a simple message. It’s oddly constructed and takes the readers out of immersion for the scene.
The colors evoke the dark, moody aesthetic of the games without ever feeling overbearing or particularly monochrome. Even in a setting like the Unformed World, an environment of mostly greys, Kokarev uses effects like Gwyn’s lightning, dragon fire and the highlights of Arkon and Artorias’s capes to give the scene some varied color. The palettes also d a good job at filling in details of setting that is left out of the structural art. In the sewers, we can tell that visually this is a place underground because of the greys in the fog, showing that the air is trapped in, and the inconsistent lighting. We also get the sense of a pub or tavern in the Lower Ward scene due to Kokarev’s warm patches of orange light, that imply candles in the cold stony room. It’s well constructed setting work that uses every aspect of the art to give a sense of place.
I’m glad to say that “Dark Souls: The Age Of Fire” feels like first comic to capture the essence of the video game almost perfectly. The characters are shady and well-formed, the world is atmospheric and intricate, and the art is dark and painterly. The plot may not have felt fully formed, but I’m glad to have gotten such solid table setting in its place. This feels finally like the franchise is on the right track.
Final Score: 7.8 – “Dark Souls: The Age Of Fire” is tonally fantastic, with great character/ world development and painterly artwork, but a plot that takes a while to fully establish.
