Historical dramas can be tricky. Apart from questions of authenticity and attention to period detail, there’s always the worry that the reader will feel too distant from the goings-on that make up the plot. Happily, a very talented team stands behind the epic independent production that is “Yi Soon Shin”, and they bring this story to life with flair.
Written by Onrie Kompan
Illustrated by Giovanni TimpanoOutnumbered 10 to 1, legendary Korean Admiral YI SOON SHIN stands against a Japanese army of samurai and ninja in a violent orgy of blood and heroics. A 5-star work of art on par with “300”, written by Onrie Kompan, with cover and artwork by Giovanni Timpano; featuring a foreword from Stan “The Man” Lee.
The year is 1592, and Korea faces the threat of being conquered by the invading Japanese. Admiral Yi Soon Shin, commander of his own fleet within the highly fragmented Korean navy, is going to have to rely on tactics and diplomacy instead of brute force if he ever hopes to make a dent in Japan’s militia. Meanwhile, everybody’s loyalties are shifting, and it’s hard to know who to trust when even the King has given up on Korea…
This is a story with widescreen appeal. Epic battles, sweeping political intrigues — it’s all the sort of thing you’d expect of a movie with a massive budget. Set down in comic form, a principal accomplishment of this work is that it still manages to seem big. It’s a sense of scale that arises organically from the wonderful writing and art, both of which demonstrate an astounding attention to detail.
Onrie Kompan’s writing quickly reveals itself to be subtle and nuanced. While the principal conflict is framed as having an obvious “good side” and “bad side”, Kompan never fails to get at the human motivations that stand behind the armed forces of both nations. Kompan is sure to differentiate and characterize each commander and general on either side, giving every one a distinct, recognizable personality and particular allegiances. There’s also a lot of emphasis put on the dynamic between Yi and his men, which is a lot more comradely than you might expect. As Kompan makes clear, Yi won the war by personally drilling his fleets in specified manoeuvres, so it makes sense that he had a strong rapport with those he had the power to command.
There’s aren’t a lot of female characters in this story, which is understandable; this was a war fought by men. The two we do get — the nurse Injung and the seductive Jin — come across as whole, round characters, with the only trouble being that each seems a little too much the others’ opposite. Still, there is a lot of wiggle room to the usual stereotypes of “good woman” and “bad woman” here; each of these ladies has a lot of baggage, relating deeply and integrally to the political intrigues at hand. And, while we’re on the subject, there’s also an unexpected romance on the side of the Japanese which ups the drama factor. It turns out there are allegiances in this world other than the national, and in this story these serve to vitally complicate matters.
Most notably, Kompan doesn’t make the mistake of having the characters speak in the hoity-toity, speechifying tone that you find so often in historical fiction. Instead everybody speaks in a more or less modern way, and while it’s a little strange to see a sixteenth-century Japanese general call the Koreans a bunch of pussies, there’s a certain immediacy to this style of dialogue that would have been missing otherwise. (Anyway, it’s not like people haven’t been calling each other pussies since the dawn of time.)
Timpano’s art is a revelation. Elegantly handling fight scenes, emotionally-charged dialogues, and spot-on historical details, his panels and pages never look anything less than arresting. His Yi Soon Shin in particular is very sensitively drawn. All pent-up emotion and stress, he’s clearly an ordinary human being with some specific talents put into an extraordinary situation. Then, of course, there are the epic battles at sea: Timpano does an excellent job getting across the scale of these confrontations, and renders the kobukson — or turtle ships — especially well. These were ships designed to be both terrifying to look at and deadly in battle, and Timpano makes them come across as near-otherworldly forces to be reckoned with as well as the pieces of tactical and engineering genius that they were. Add Adriana De Los Santos’ bold colours to all this, and you’ve got one gobsmacking art style: leaning heavily into the blacks but shining out in all manner of rich ochres and reds, each page looks like it’s lit from within. Much like a kobukson, actually. Seriously, Google those things.
Continued belowThe only real complaint that can be raised against Timpano’s art is that certain characters veer into the realm of caricature, with King Sonjo being the obvious example. However, they don’t stand out too badly in a comic that takes great pains to be as vivid and intense as a fever dream.
Finally — and not that it pertains to the story too much — the book itself is presented in a lovely fashion. It’s always a pleasure to flip through a hardback graphic novel, especially when the art is as wonderful as this, but real care has been put into making the whole book as an object feel special. There’s even a ribbon bookmark sewn in! It all adds up to one impressive piece of bookshelf candy.
In case you haven’t gotten the picture already, “Yi Soon Shin, Warrior and Defender” is a sumptuous book all round. There’s a rich story, gorgeous art, and some truly exciting battle scenes. The team behind “Yi Soon Shin” has crafted something that’s both incredibly well researched and thoroughly enjoyable; an against-all-odds hero’s tale with broad appeal. This one is for fans of historical fiction whether or not they have any previous interest in the Imjin War; it’s a universal story of determination in the face of adversity.
Finally, let’s not forget that there’s more where this came from; this is only the first volume of what promises to be one hell of a series.
Final Verdict: 8.8 — Buy
