Suspended Animation Review

Witch King: Autobiography of a Dark Lord/120 pgs. & $19.95 from Phosphorescent/words: Christian Read; art: Paul Abstruse/sold at comics shops and www.phosphorescent.net.

Gavriel was a bookish boy who turned to the occult when neglected and abused by his father, the king, and his warrior siblings.

Venthrall Keep was a once mighty fortress that now lives in ruins because Gavriel unleashed a horror that he cannot control. His only hope for victory now lies in raising an army of the dead; he is responsible for their deaths.

And Witch King: Autobiography of a Dark Lord is the dark fantasy graphic novel that reprints the first five issues of the Witch King comic book.

Thank Gog.

Well-scripted and tightly paced, character driven and engrossing, Witch King is written in the tradition of the Lord of the Rings. It is a worthy companion, and that is high praise.

Its impeccable, anime inspired art uses anatomical exaggeration to visually punch home its message and establish a distinctive style. So power-ful is the visual, internal logic of this style that anatomical weaknesses are forgotten as the reader is driven to the climax of this epic.

Honestly, sometime a hand looks like raw cauliflower, perspective and fore-shortening are faked, and anatomical exaggeration becomes so distracting that suspension of disbelief is almost lost.

But the whole is greater than its dark and brooding parts, and you'll hunger to know what happens to Gavriel's sister in the next Witch King collection!

Witch King is excellent and recommended. MV

MINIVIEW: The Clouds Above [Fantagraphics] "These pages recount the terribly terrific and tremendously true travels of Simon and Jack" reads the opening volley. Simon is a little boy and Jack is a cat who travel up stairs to have an adventure in the clouds in this imaginative book drawn in a simple style for young children. MV

Order you copy of the all-Vance horror paperback Apocris 1 at http://www.lighthousemediaone.co.uk/FutureProjects.html

Interested in the exciting Oklahoma Cartoonists Collection and Toy and Action Figure Museum? Go to fourcolorcommentary.blogspot.com/