“Punch Up” by Zachary Sterling is a duel story, meaning that the plot is centered around a fighting tournament. Pitch, our orphaned, naïve, and impulsive lead hears of a great tournament headed by his favorite fighting champion. Despite the discouragement of his current martial arts teachers at his school, Pitch runs away to meet his hero and, hopefully, be trained by him.
Cover by Zachary SterlingWritten, Illustrated, Colored, and Lettered by Zachary Sterling
From New York Times best-selling cartoonist Zachary Sterling (Adventure Time, Mabuhay) comes an all-ages, shonen manga-style adventure for fans of Naruto and Dragon Ball Z!Young orphan Pitch has big dreams of traveling to the city and competing in the Wide Plains Fighting Tournament. He also harbors a secret wish—to be trained by aging competitor Sonny Chan. Can Pitch make it in a big city filled with unsavory types that want to do him harm? And is Emperor Jayson, host of the fighting tournament, one of those people? Will Sonny decide to act decent . . . for once? Find out in this exciting blast of battle energy from up-and-coming cartoonist Zachary Sterling!.
Things do not go as planned. The hero isn’t the kind of person Pitch expected him to be, there’s politicking that ruins the purity of the fighting, and, oh, there’s a murderer running about killing off tournament contestants. There is also several awesome duels, a great deal of humor, and, perhaps the beginning of a redemption story for the fallen hero.
While the story features dueling with lives on the line and the aforementioned murderer, the tone should make this acceptable to anyone ages seven and up. Pitch is an optimistic lead, despite setbacks, and his sunshine infects and inspires the darker characters.
Zachary Sterling is a New England-based Filipino-American artist with a long list of television credits, including Adventure Time, My Little Pony, and Bee & PuppyCat. All this experience and talent clearly shows in Punch Up. The pacing of the story is excellent. No sooner has Pitch run off to the tournament than he’s meeting his hero, suffering his first setback, winning his first match, and, fairly quickly, teaming up with the older hero as a means to win the tournament.
The opening page introduces the setting with a long shot, with a few establishing panels of the school, and quickly moves to a class where the absence of our hero is duly noted. It’s a fun way of letting us know exactly what kind of protagonist Pitch is. I also like the sometimes simple backgrounds that emphasize and focus the movement of the characters.
The designs of the various combatants are fantastic. Cobra Dan is the first to fall to Pitch and his lizard costume with Cobra Hands is appropriate silly. The opponents become more difficult as the tournament continues and, well, I’m not sure if they’re silly or brilliant. Both, in the end. The people in the story range from human to various flavors of humanoid, which adds a nice SF touch to the story. Pitch is an endearing lead and the main story tension comes from the relationship between him and his hero, who becomes his reluctant mentor (and maybe more, but that seems to be for future volumes.)
Would I recommend “Punch Up?” Yes. This first volume ends on a good note, with the tournament still in progress. Two more volumes are planned to finish the story. This is a story directed at younger readers, rather than adults, and the target audience should enjoy it immensely.
