Debuting next month from First Second, Paul Pope’s long awaited graphic novel “Battling Boys” will hit comic and book stores to the exciting open arms of many fans. Today at MC, we’re going to tell you why you need to be one of them.
And, as a note, this will be spoiler-free.
Birthed from the desire to do a “Kamandi”-style book, “Battling Boy” follows the adventures of the eponymous hero as he is brought to a chaotic and monster-infused world as a rite of passage. Like a bar mitzvah with monsters, the Battling Boy has to discover what it means to be a hero with his heritage in a city that recently lost its primary hero (as seen in the events of the prequel one-shot “The Death of Haggard West,” both contained within the graphic novel and expanded upon). It’s a unique twist on the coming-of-age tale, where our hero doesn’t have to worry about the standard tropes of young heroes and more how to survive in a completely new environment obsessed with his celebrity.
In terms of introducing us to this world, “Battling Boy” is a stellar first installment. It’s exciting, it’s a lot of fun and it opens up a grand scale of infinite possibilities to explore. There’s a grand element of new mythology to it that Pope delves into rather succinctly, and Battling Boy is essentially attacked from all sides with different forms of villainy — whether it be the government obsessed with using him for popular political gains or the underground villainous mob looking to making good for themselves in a post-Haggard West city. Pope fills up the world with so many rich characters for Battling Boy to interact with, from his boisterous and lightly familiar father to the surviving members of the West family dealing with the loss of Haggard. It’s a juggling act of a few plots, but they all coalesce rather nicely, interweaving in and out of each other’s stories with Battling Boy at the center.
Not only that, but already Pope has delivered quite a strong visual look for the world of Arcopolis. It’s a touch post-apocalyptic wasteland and slightly something out of a Western; Arcopolis visually is like a mix of District 9 and Pope’s own quirks and flourishes in architecture that gives the whole book a stronger pop. There are portions encased within a wasteland, but even a destitute city seems to gain a certain sense of energy and love under Pope’s pencils. This is of course placed against Battling Boy’s own home, which is much more vibrant and yet somehow darker overall than the Acropolis; the heavens above carry with them a sense of bleakness that is matched against the optimism of the land, and both play off one another thematically within the story as part of Battling Boy’s adventure.
There’s even an element to it that’s a touch surreal, as universes are explored and dreams are walked through. It’s an existential take on the young hero archetype, delivering a character that offers up Pope’s usual brand of emotionally aloof and hip protagonists with a broader sense of enthusiasm all around. Battling Boy’s introduction mirrors the introduction to the book, both scenes done under completely different circumstances and levels of peril but each offering up unique looks at both the character and world. And, like for most of the citizens of Acropolis, it’s hard not to find Battling Boy charming in his own right, easily likable for his flaws as well as his strengths.
Suffice it to say, fans of Pope’s body of work will not be disappointed with the artist’s latest effort. “Battling Boy” assuredly offers up something new and different from the usual work you’d find from Pope — there’s less of a reliance on insane futurism and more detail placed in grounding what is in and of itself a rather bombastic story. Battling Boy and the manifestation of his powers are quite a sight to behold, and there’s definitely the same presence of kinetic movement visible throughout the many action scenes. There’s actually an interesting level of detail to be seen in the opening Haggard West scene with how Pope handles Battling Boy’s own action sequences later on; they’re essentially like reading two completely different books, with West’s actions having visible motion lines throughout to show the character’s more self-assured nature and Battling Boy’s playing off as more reserved, still trying to find footing for his incredible gifts.
Continued belowIt’s this care and attention to detail that makes “Battling Boy” such an interesting read, and a fine new entry into Pope’s bibliography.
Of course, none of it is particularly outside of the (probably lofty) expectations you’d have for new work by Paul Pope, but it’s all much more refined than we’ve seen before. Pope’s art often has a rather static and electric feel, which at times — while always inherently beautiful and exciting — can muddy up the flow of a story, depending on what Pope is choosing to put more balance towards. It’s particularly notable in a book like “Heavy Liquid,” which has a strange mix of style to substance in it, though that’s a decade old story. In “Battling Boy,” the familiar elements and mannerisms of Pope’s work is there but clearly fine-tuned, perhaps in order to accomodate the fact that this more than anything else he’s ever done (except maybe that short “Masked Karimbah” comic) can reach an all-ages audience.
Which, by the way, is one of the best parts of the book. Pope often deals with much heavier subjects in his work, with even his four-issue “Batman: Year 100” book not being something as accessible to general audiences. (I’ve literally heard it described as “too weird to be a Batman story,” which was insane to me at the time.) But “Battling Boy” plays its cards right and just enough that it really is an all-ages graphic novel; there’s a definite sense of joy to be found in the book, even with the slightly timid and uncertain titular hero, and it stands to reason that the mix of humor and more friendly storytelling with Pope’s iconic art style could turn “Battling Boy” into the next “Bone” eventually.
However, if there’s one drawback to the book, it’s that it ends rather uneventfully. I don’t mean that as some weird truism either; “Battling Boy” builds with it a certain sense of momentum that is cut short by a rather abrupt finale. The idea is that it will lead towards the second volume of “Battling Boy,” where more can occur and this character and his world can be elaborated upon, but the place in which the book is cut-off actually hinders the story a bit. It’s as if someone turned a movie off before the middle of the second act — it leaves you wanting more, which is great, but it also doesn’t give you enough.
That’s a difficult balance to maintain when building a graphic novel that is the first in a series, but it’s something that “Battling Boy” could’ve done better. For all intents and purposes, the first story of our young hero doesn’t reach a satisfying conclusion for his character arc; it just cuts off. We have a piece for a bigger puzzle, but no great idea about what the finished product will look like. There are so many things that are ultimately left underdeveloped, ideas that seem like they’ll grow in fruition here but now have to be dealt with in later volumes, and it reads rather strangely. Comparatively, if you take “Battling Boy” and hold it up against other books that are released in serialized graphic novel form, this doesn’t hold up to something like “Amulet” by Kazu Kibuishi, where each book is very much its own self-contained narrative.
Perhaps part of the issue is the amount of time we had to wait for “Battling Boy” and the hype that goes with it. Certainly the incredibly high expectations that a creator like Pope has burdened himself with doesn’t help, because we all expect another 10.0 book. “Battling Boy” will assumedly get to that point when the story is done, but for now it leaves the reader wanting .
Still, there is so much to like about “Battling Boy” that the otherwise abrupt ending is something fairly easy to overlook, if not otherwise ignore. This is the first book in a new creator-owned young adult graphic novel series from one of the all-time best illustrators in comics, and it maintains everything you’d expect to see from Pope in a more light-hearted and fun fashion. The book feels like a labor of love and it’s hard not to get lost in its optimism, and missing out on the release of “Battling Boy” is something you can’t afford to do.
Check out a trailer for “Battling Boy” below, and pick up the book when it goes on sale October 8th.
