sera_and_the_royal_stars_feat Reviews 

“Sera and the Royal Stars” #1

By | July 19th, 2019
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

Sera and the Royal Stars should be the name of a rival band in “Band vs Band.”

Written by Jon Tsuei
Illustrated by Audrey Mok
Colored by Raul Angulo
Lettered by Jim Campbell

Civil war rages in the Empire of Parsa, and famine has struck. As the seasons refuse to turn, Princess Sera receives a vision from the deity Mitra telling her to find the Royal Stars and restore them to the heavens. Despite her kingdom and her troops’ need of her command, Sera embarks on a quest to find the fallen stars—now trapped on earth—and save her people from dearth and death.

Author Jon Tsuei takes readers on an epic fantasy quest through the Persian landscape, beautifully drawn by Audrey Mock and brought to life through Raúl Angulo’s colors, with lettering by Jim Campbell.

There is a quiet moment on the first page of “Sera and the Royal Stars,” as the titular princess surveys her fallen soldiers. She tends to a body in a three panel sequence, while looking over it she comes across a flower. Audrey Mok’s art does an excellent job of conveying body language and showing the moment of indecision in the princess’ hand as she chooses between plucking the lone desert flower and the arrow lodged in the dead soldiers body. She chooses the latter, a choice punctuated by colorist Raul Angulo shifting the background to a burnt orange. The three panel sequence is a nice little moment that hints at the characters desire for peace and beauty, but her upbringing has resulted her in only knowing conflict. It is also, pretty much, the last quiet moment in the first issue of “Sera and the Royal Stars” as the series larger quest driven plot starts to unfold and destinies are foretold, rejected, excepted, and adventures begun in the span of 26 pages.

That break neck pacing potentially getting the book into trouble is realized in the next couple of pages. The army of their would be usurper uncle and nephew magically reappears, with the high ground. Which is odd because their theater of battles is a Monument Valley like desert, and we are told they are fleeing away over the border. Only for them to magically reappear. The sequence has a confusing spatial geography as battle lines are drawn, but never fully shown, making the sequence confusing. Mok’s paneling on this page, using various angled panels that don’t give any single one sound footing despite their fitting together like a perfect jigsaw puzzle is effective.

Sera soon gets one of her recurring visions of Mitra, a supernatural being, before waking up from her vision to a solar eclipse. Which further adds to the confusion as we never get a clear look at the sun before the eclipse, it reads as if it randomly appears. The effects of which aren’t really hinted at in the sky prior to her vision or after. If it wasn’t for the insert panel of the eclipse and Sera’s siblings mentioning as they get her out of the battle, the reader wouldn’t have ever noticed it. There’s the difference between showing the confusing chaos of battle, Gladiatork the D-Day sequence from Saving Private Ryan and keeping it legible, and just being plain confusing. This battle sequence was the latter.

The rest of the issues break neck pacing has cleaner, if a bit standard in execution, as the creative team use genre and character design to work through things. Roya, Sera’s younger sister, looks hot headed and has an undercut. Their Father looks tired and concerned all the time. Their Father’s adviser is looks wise and learned with his long grey beard and soft colors. The traitorous uncle and nephew are decked out in all black everything, which is both the opposite of Sera’s colorful outfits an hilariously out of step with their desert environment. There is that mysterious brother and sister duo who ominously watch over the battle and talk of starting a new era where they are in charge, decked out in purple horned robes. People look like they act in this first issue.

That stock idea of character is supported by everyone speaking in a very arch manner. Jon Tsuei’s scripting reads a couple steps removed from 90s English dubbed anime, where the translators and dubbing team thought their audience couldn’t remember anything and lacked subtly. On some level, when you have mysterious people dressed up in some kind of Akatsuki and Organization XII fusion, if they didn’t talk like evil masterminds ominously hinting at things for the reader I would be let down. Neither had facial hair but they certainly could’ve twirled their capes. The same goes for Roya, whose combative nature comes through beautifully. “Sera and the Royal Stars” lays it all on a bit thick, but that quality also reveals some moments of depth as the very clear familial divides and history begin to bubble to the surface as the issue continues.

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Surprisingly one of the subtler aspects of the book is how it narrates its environment to the reader. “Sera” takes place in a vaguely Middle Eastern fantasy setting where the seasons have gone haywire as if it was Zelda: Oracle of Seasons. Some places have turned to harsh deserts stuck in a perpetual summer others in spring. With the seasons out of sequence the people and land are suffering and Sera’s quest to break the magical bonds that bind the Royal Stars should alleviate things.

While there was some visual confusion early on, overall artist Audrey Mok’s work is effective. Her character designs are lively and feature strong line work that walks the fine line between detailed and overdone. Overall her page designs support the tone of the scene at hand. The real standout for me is Raul Angulo’s color palette and varied application. For the characters everyone is mostly punched and fit Mok’s linework. It is their environmental work that reads completely differently at times. The way Angulo colors our establishing panel of the Setarek or Eastern Steppe in this painterly application and collage of colors that stands apart and creates a nice contrast with solidity associated with the characters.

The first issue of “Sera and the Royal Stars” packs a lot, maybe too much, in as it gets the series grand quest narrative off the ground. Hopefully in subsequent issues the series can catch its breath and work on fleshing its cast out as more than the archetypes they appear to be, which was hinted at in small pieces throughout.

Final Verdict: 6.5 – It has a few hiccups but has a decent genre hook. Overall it lacks a spark that makes me immediately want to add this to a pull list.


Michael Mazzacane

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