Reviews 

“Little Bird” #1

By | March 14th, 2019
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

At once both bloody and beautiful, epic and personal, “Little Bird” is the ambitious new dystopian sci-fi miniseries that’ll break your heart and keep you coming back for more.

Cover by Ian Bertram

Written by Darcy Van Poelgeest
Illustrated by Ian Bertram
Colored by Matt Hollingsworth
Lettered by Aditya Bidikar

With the same limitless scope as a new “East of West” or “Saga” and the drama and surrealism of “Akira,” “Little Bird” follows a young resistance fighter who battles against an oppressive American Empire and searches for her own identity in a world on fire.

A Canadian city prepares to go to war against an army of invaders. A great warrior, face painted and spear in-hand rallies her people against them. She hides her daughter where she knows she’ll be safe and tells her goodbye. “Little Bird” #1 is the story of that girl as she sets out on her own to save the world, or so she believes.

In his first ever comic, Darcy Van Poelgeest weaves a story of a rotting American theocracy that seeks to conquer Canada. In this dystopian future, the stars on the American flag have been replaced with a crucifix. The bloody, wild-eyed leader calls their enemies “terrorists.” The American people look on with empty eyes and slack jaws. Little Bird, our titular character, is armed only with knives and a mantra: “Free the Axe. Save the people. Free the north. Save the world.”

Though the story itself is surreal and futuristic, it also doesn’t seem too terribly far off. The book opens with the quote, “’Little Bird’ was written on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.” It reminds us that First Nations people have defended their territory from white aggressors before and that, while there may be people floating in bright orange spheres of energy or others bathing in tubs filled with tentacles, the core of “Little Bird” is anchored in reality. And that reality is that America isn’t always the hero.

Clearly, Van Poelgeest has some opinions on the current state of society. But the political commentary isn’t the only characteristic of “Little Bird” that gives it its magic. Darcy Van Poelgeest is also an award-winning screenwriter and director after all, and he brings that experience and expertise to the page through visionary world-building, nuanced characters, and an impossible task. In essence, he knows how to tell a damn fine story.

He also knows when to rely on the art to tell the story. It probably helps that entire creative team collaborated so effectively, rather than treating “Little Bird’s” creation like an assembly line, as can so often be the case with comics. Van Poelgeest’s relationship with Ian Bertram, especially, creates brilliant chemistry where the art, dialogue, and exposition weave the world around us seamlessly. There’s just enough time to take in the barren, snowy environments and the interiors filled with strange lifeforms before our curiosity compels us to turn the page to see what’s next.

Ian Bertram’s art is a visual feast, the lovechild of Daniel Warren Johnson’s and Moebius. His illustration is organic and surreal, meticulously detailed and finely inked. The details aren’t just there out of a sense of style. Often, they carry rewarding information to those who spend time digesting the panel: a discarded glove after a struggle. The diseased faces of a malnourished population. An aged poster of a Canadian hero. Done by a different artist or creative team, these details would be wallpaper, serving only as a backdrop to the narrative. But Van Poelgeest and Bertram are simpatico, often planting seeds of a plot as a tiny detail now to be reaped several pages later.

Even with a letterer as remarkably talented as Aditya Bidikar, Bertram creates many of his own sound effects, immersing them within the panel’s action in his hand-drawn style. That’s not to say Bidikar gets to rest on his laurels – quite the opposite. Bidikar worked on the letters for these five issues for over a year, adding his own sound effects to the mix, matching the hand-drawn panels to with his own hand-drawn balloons and the occasional font, and using many other wonderful effects to build upon the Moebius-esque foundation laid by Bertram.

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Of course, line art and word balloons aren’t the only facets of Moebius’s style. Master colorist Matt Hollingsworth’s palette is almost “Incal”-like in some of the more science-fiction settings in “Little Bird,” working well with Ian Bertram’s art and Aditya Bidikar’s letters to drive that Moebius vibe home. But telling someone like Matt Hollingsworth to go full Moebius through the entire comic would be wasteful. Luckily, we also get some inspired palettes that bring this world to life, like a cold, Canadian city awash with autumn, or a wintry wasteland that makes you feel the cold in your bones. You can almost feel the warmth of the fire radiating off the page as Little Bird cooks herself a meal amidst the snow.

This is all to say that the creators of “Little Bird” are doing some of their finest work in this comic. But, like the thousands of tiny marks Ian Bertram makes in order to bring the bigger picture to life, this title is more than the sum of its parts. It’s in Ben Didier’s elegant, intricate, almost fragile design work that envelops the story. It’s in the heart of a young girl as she takes up an impossible task, and a weary hero called to fight once more for the country he loves. It’s in the blood and viscera in between panels and flooding the gutters in one brilliant, brutal fight scene. It’s in that feeling you get as you read “Little Bird” #1, like the smell before rain. There’s a charge there in your bones, telling you a storm is on the way. And this is going to be a big one.

Final Verdict: 9.2 -“Little Bird” is revolutionary dystopian sci-fi at its best, a classic from issue #1. Read it now, before it’s on all the “top 10 of 2019” lists later.


Matt Ligeti

Also known as "The Comic Book Yeti," Matt Ligeti writes simple, scannable reviews of comics at ComicBookYeti.com. He lives with his yeti family in the Midwest, but is ready to pick up and leave immediately if spotted. Find him on Twitter at @ComicBookYeti.

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