BOOM! Comics brings us an original graphic novel soft cover this month, entitled “Iron: Or The War After”
Written and illustrated by S. M. Vidaurri, it’s printed on the Archaia Entertainment imprint.
It’s all serious stuff: There was a war. And it’s winter all the time. It’s earth, of course, possibly in the 1940s. But it’s not that simple; the surroundings are fictionalized. And there’s no relief at the end of this war, in fact, there is continued resistance.
Iron: Or The War After deals with the themes of loyalty, betrayal, trust, and commitment to family. It’s also about torture, obsessive adherence to a political regime, and brutality.
The graphic novel is entirely populated by talking animals. The lead character is a rabbit, but there are also owls, tigers, goats and so on, all in humanoid form. They walk upright, but not all are upright citizens. The surroundings are stark, and the visual style is that of grey and blue halftone water-colour. It’s bleak mid-winter. The panels are set to float on the page, many wordless. The painted pages are cleanly executed, if intensely solemn. The graphics do carry considerable weight, however, and the going is slow. There is a lot of attention paid to the events that take place in Iron, so we need to tread carefully and read each word balloon. It’s a serious tome.
This graphic novel was first published in 2012 and was nominated for the Graphic Album category in the Pépites 2013 Salon de Montreuil.
Author Shane Vidaurri was born and raised in US, and now works in New York. His recent Steven Universe miniseries was also published by BOOM.
BOOM Comics, “Iron: Or The War After”, 168 pages of content for #19.99 Not rated, assume Teen
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