About two weeks ago, I received an e-mail. This is a rather regular occurrence, I’d say. Ever since this site went big time with a dot com address, new design, and more content (oh, and that freaking Twitter list), I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails a day. One such e-mail struck me as extra interesting though. It said, in a nutshell, “We have a comic, would you like to review it?” And me, the uber nerd that I am, jumped up and down. This was the first e-mail I’d gotten of this nature, and I thought it was particularly cool. It was definitely an honor to have someone want my opinion on their work! I composed myself, grabbed my pipe and a glass of Chardonnay, and replied with due diligence that it would be a most splendid endeavor of mine to review said comic. Then, sometime last week, I received a package with my name on it and a comic inside! How exciting!
So with that notation in front, I bring you an extra special review of The Order of Dagonet issue 1 in all it’s glory and revelry.
The Order of Dagonet is by Jeremy Whitley and Jason Strutz of Firetower Studios. In it, a group of construction workers unearth a tree in good old London in honor David Beckham. Seemingly normal occurrence, no? Unfortunately, this tree just happened to be a seal to a different realm that held captive Queen Titania and Lord Oberon, two Faerie folk who are interested in taking over our entire world as it, according to them, rightfully is theirs. Queue the downfall of British parliament! Fortunately, there are a set of knights who are called upon to do battle with said Faeries and to help protect our British compatriots. Unfortunately, those knights are … well, they leave something to be desired. You see, in our time, there are no real knights. What we have are musicians, actors, and writers. So what do we get? A writer responsible for the most popular boy wizard book phenomenon, a metal musician who can barely be understood, and an aging actor who really doesn’t seem all that interested in the whole “saving the world” gig. We’re screwed.
What I’ve described sums up, in a nutshell, the basic plot of issue 1 of The Order of Dagonet. What makes up the plot, however, is a good sense of humor and character development. The boys behind this book very clearly understand their characters, as is evident by the lush background provided by their website and dialogue. You really get a sense for how screwed we all our with these “knights” as our defenders, and it’s not just because the rock star says so. The world the characters inhabit make for a curious state of both mild social commentary and various parody incarnations (I hope it was clear who the knights really “are” in my descriptions), and it makes for an amusing romp. I also really enjoy the fantasy aspect of the story, as underdeveloped as it is right now (but hey, it’s just the first issue!). The two main antagonists, Titania and Oberon (as well as the extra Puck) appear both in horrifying presence and dark humor, as Puck makes his entrance at the end of a production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
There are only two real items to which I believe I could draw contention for. The first is, as much as the characters are written very well, the story at parts does seem a bit wavy and unpolished. The main reason for this, I assume, is that Whitley knows the story so well, he assumes that we know it all too. For example, I provided a link to the background of the characters earlier, and it’s incredibly lush and full of detail. When creating a character, it is important for the writer to know all of these things, but he also needs to share them with the audience. If I didn’t know all I knew about the plot from reading a description of the book, I might not have “got” that our heroes were knights, in a manner of speaking. When the three appear, they’re brought together by a wizard who appears for a page, tells them to save the world, and disappears before they can ask any questions. While this is admittedly quite humorous, at the same time it’s a bit confusing. It’s also a bit odd that, while some real life characters appear as they normally are, various concepts are turned into parodies, such as Narnes and Boble. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it seemed a bit of an odd move to me (unless I completely misread David Beckham at the beginning?).
The other point of contention would be the art. The art isn’t bad at all, don’t get me wrong! In fact, it reminds me a bit of a less sharp Francis Manapul if you removed all his straight lines for faces and bodies and made them a bit curvier. I’m a fan of straight pens and inks, but I always love seeing art that takes a non-traditional approach and tries to do something differently. Strutz definitely does this throughout the book, such as the opening pages and the way the frames are set up as if they’re signals coming from a tower. Very neat. My comment on it would be, however, that in occasions such as the image above, there is so much going on that it becomes a tad bit muddled. For those unsure, the above image is the tree that held the Fairies prisoner exploding from the ground and unleashing all the power it once kept. When you look over the picture, however, you can see more of the creatures that are flowing out of the ground, coming to take our Earth, and on the subsequent pages we have Queen Titania attacking the men who released her in the first place. In concept? A very epic scene. In execution? An epic scene that is just a tad bit uneven.
All in all, I would definitely still end up in a favorable disposition towards the book. For one, I really like the story. I’m all for social commentary, and this book definitely takes a nice good jab at the way we view our celebrities. And I really love the way the rock star speaks, because once I got exactly who he was a parody of, I gave out a good hearty laugh as to how spot on the dialogue was. I’m always a fan of dialect being used in comics (like Garth Ennis does 90% of the time), so this hit the right note for me. I also really like the fantasy aspect, especially the Shakespearean ties (for those who don’t quite understand who the characters are, you might want to click this). I myself am a huge fan of classical literature, Shakespeare being right at the top, so count me in on that account as well. And when you mix it all together? Delicious.
So would I recommend the Order of Dagonet at the end of the day? Yes. When all is said and done and the story has reached it’s conclusion, I’m more than confident that it will make for quite a tale. I’m interested in seeing where the knights progress from here, and to what ends and means they go to defeat the Faeries. I mean, what can an actor do to take down a being of supreme evil? Monologue him to death? This is for the writer and artist to show me and us in following issues, and I’m sure it’ll be an interesting story at that.
You can check out the Order of Dagonet by clicking here.
