Thanks to the internet, indie comics have blown up in popularity in the past decade or so. No longer did artists, writers, inkers and all the people it takes to create a comic have to join any of the bigger comic publishers to get their works seen by the masses. All they have to do is just post up their work on various social networks and on their own dedicated site. And while that’s great and all, nothing beats old fashioned ink and paper and that too is starting to become more easier for indie comic creators to be able to do. From super hero orange skinned presidents to cute little spirits, there’s all type of stories to be told. And speaking of spirits, today’s review is Chibi Muerte #1 from Myth Global.
The comic is based of the collectible figure line of the same name and series of web comics by Myth Global. Written by Jean-Binh Valente and art by Maggie Z, Chibi Essence #1 is the basically the origin story of how these nature spirits came into being. A long time ago in Japan, humans started to populate the land. As their number grew, so did the damage they were inflicting onto the forest. Mother Nature roams the forest, surveying all the damage being done and decided to do something about it. She uses various elements and the resources of the forest to create the first generation of Chibi Essences: Kibuclu, Grouchi, Splash-fun, Fire-top, Vyva, Rockus, Chi-bella, and many more. Their mission: to teach and help the humans learn how to use the forest and its natural resources wisely. At first they’re doing a great job, but then the humans started to out number them. They call on Mother Nature and she creates more Chibi Essence spirits to help out. Even with the extra help, humans still continue to populate Japan, and eventually war breaks out.
For an origin story, its pretty simple yet lighthearted and cute. I like how each of the Chibi Essence spirits have their own unique look and personalty. Speaking of looks, when I first read the web comics and then the comic book, I noticed that the spirits kind look similar to the Kodama spirits from Princess Mononoke. The artist, Maggie Z, says that they are the same just that each spirit is associated with different element, such as air, water, earth etc. Her take on the Kodama lends to have more varied spirits, which in turn have different personalities and designs. Speaking of design, the art in the comic is really amazing. It’s color pencil ascetic gives it a fairy tail book feel to it. Which apparently took two months to get just right according to Maggie Z. Not to mention the front cover of the comic. The copy I was sent had a cover exclusive to Baltimore Comic-con and was drawn by Jessica Van Braun. The cover is a really cool homage to the bus stop scene from My Neighbor Totoro. The art style kind of reminded me of two books I read as a kid, The Stinky Cheese Man and Math Curse, and a video game called Don’t Starve. It’s almost Burton-esque, which is really cool.
As great as the artwork and the design of the spirits are, I do have some issues with the comic. From what I can tell, it seems that the comic was printed in a rush. Some of the sentences seem to be worded/structured weirdly. I don’t know if this was a mistake or a style choice. It’s not a negative per-se as I understood what was going on, it just seemed weird. The other issue I have is that the pacing feels a bit off, at least to me. I understand that this is a origins story and that the comic is geared towards fans of the web series, but in some parts it feels like small details were overlooked. This isn’t too much of an issue, as this is the first issue of a full 32 page comic book.
I really enjoyed Chibi Essence #1. The premise is very cool and the art work is amazing. Though the pacing and some of the dialogue felt weird, I’ll chalk it up to this being Myth Globe’s first attempt at a full comic. There is so much potential with Chibi Essence. I hope to see more in the future.
