Once upon a time. . . No, wait, this is a review. Reviews don’t start with “Once upon a time.” Or maybe they can. Maybe this one does.
Once upon a time, Matt Kindt and Matt Smith created “Folklords.” We here at Multiversity Comics loved the first issue and were eager for the second. And for good reason too, for the second issue was every bit as good as the first and then some. I’m going gush a little bit about specific moments in this one, so there will be spoilers.
Written by Matt KindtCover by Matt Smith
Illustrated by Matt Smith
Colored by Chris O’Halloran
Lettered by Jim CampbellAgainst the order of his village, Ansel strikes out to find the Folklords, the only beings that can explain his visions of another world. But the forest is even more dark and terrible than he was told, and Ansel meets two very different women who will change his life-one way or another-forever.
Right from the moment it was announced, it was clear that Matt Kindt and Matt Smith had a story to tell. That seems rather obvious, doesn’t it? I mean, comics are stories, right? Of course they had a story to tell! And while that’s true, it’s not always the focus of a comic. Some are about characters, some are about a world, some are about an idea, some are about art. . . “Folklords” is about story, that convergence of all these elements together. It’s right there on the cover for issue #1. We’re presented with a fantasy village, and in the middle of it is a boy that clearly doesn’t belong. And while many of the villagers are content to let him be, he’s clearly drawn the ire of two figures robed in red.
Before we’ve even seen a single glimpse of interior art, it’s already getting us to engage in the story, to ask questions, to get a sense of the world and characters. . . What a fantastic cover this is!
And “Folklords” #1 delivered exactly what the cover promised. It was a strong issue. That said, issue two is undoubtedly stronger. “Folklords” #1 did a lot of heavy lifting with limited space, and for the sake of brevity, it was keenly focused on Ansel’s story. It did its job and it had me hooked, but issue #2 really dug its claws in.
I said “Folklords” was about story earlier, but what I really should have said is that “Folklords” is about stories. In the most obvious sense, you can see this with the “Once upon a time. . .” device, which appeared in the first issue to tell us this isn’t your usual fairy tale, and in the second issue the device is deconstructed, implying the tale being told will likely be deconstructed. And that’s fun and I’m totally up for that, but then Archer tells the story of how he came to be the only elf in the village, and I was blown away by the writing and art working in such an elegant tandem.
There’s a lot of things going in on this page, but I want to focus on just one: the look on Archer’s father’s face. The man looks at his son playing by a well, and for a moment he contemplates killing him, and in that moment he becomes someone who can’t live with himself. These are complex ideas and emotions, and they’re introduced and captured so quickly, and yet given the space to breath. The dialogue carries the scene just as much as it needs to, then steps back and lets the visuals lead, leaving a void for us to populate with our interpretation of what that look on Archer’s father’s face means. If you don’t read into the expression on Archer’s father’s face—if you don’t wonder what he’s thinking and what his story is—the scene is incomplete. By wondering about these things, we get a much stronger sense of why he killed himself.
By itself, this would have been a great moment in the comic, but it’s teaching us how to read the comic. Later, we come across the “ugly” woman in the woods, and we’re given so many panels that linger on her. Archer hits her with a rock and we get four panels of her reaction. We get five panels of her forcing Ansel to kiss her, making us pay attention to each moment of change. Then as Ansel and Archer run away, we get four more panels with the weight of her disappointment settling on her.
Continued belowUnlike Archer’s father, we don’t have enough information to put together what this woman’s story is, but Kindt and Smith are unambiguously telling us we need to engage with her story—not just as a plot point, a hurdle for Ansel and Archer to conquer, but as a character. Everyone has a story. What’s hers? What does each expression that crosses her face mean?
This issue is full of fantastic writing from Matt Kindt. It’s often easy to forget that just because a scene doesn’t have dialogue, doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot writing happening. You can feel Kindt’s writing at work even when there isn’t a single word on the page. There are beats in there that are just so Kindt.
The character acting in this comic really is fantastic, especially in the moments when it doesn’t have to be. There are lines of dialogue that could’ve been a panel of a single character’s face as they talk, and yet the frame composition is much more open, capturing not just the speaker, but the listener. You could crop the listener out and you’d only very rarely lose some plot, but you’d lose character. I learn who Archer is through how he listens to Ansel and vice versa. It seems such a small thing, but I find it invaluable for getting readers to invest in this world and its characters.
Every choice the creators make matters, and they want us to know it and look carefully. Like Jim Campbell’s lettering, for example. “Once upon a time. . .” gets its own typeface, then the rest of the narrative captions abandon this overly formal style for handwriting. The narrator is a character, and the lettering is telling us who they are. Or jump forward to the second last page where the lettering is used to tell us about another world we haven’t seen yet. The “Folklords” logo even appears as part of the text. It’s such a marvelously concise way to suggest the larger story.
Nothing is wasted. It all matters. If this is what the creative team can pull off in a mere two issues, I can’t wait to see what the rest of this miniseries brings.
Final verdict: 9.5 – Sit up and pay attention. The Matts are making something special here.
