Dungeon: Twilight v.3: The New Centurions
Written by Lewis Trondheim & Joann Sfar
Illustrated by Kerascoet & Obion
Translated by Joe Johnson
Published by NBM
Oh, Dungeon, I’ll never get enough of you.
Two more volumes of the comical French fantasy epic arrived on American shores in a translated edition from NBM recently. “The New Centurions” finds Herbert the Duck, The Dust King and Marvin the Red battling usurpers in Herbert’s kingdom Craftiwich, and the second narrative, “Revolutions,” has The Dust King and Marvin the Red stranded on an airborne rotating island, trudging ever forward to avoid falling into the enormous lava lake below!
Joann Sfar and Lewis Trondheim, two of the world’s wittiest and creative cartoonists, continue to script. They stuff each tale chock full of insane twists and wild ideas, including the various ways people survive on a floating, rotating island. Meanwhile, their dialogue crackles with an uncanny balance of humor and compassion, providing the readers with dozens of amusing moments and still just enough heart to care what happens to the characters.
Though Dungeon is played somewhat tongue in cheek, the writers’ clear affection for fantasy tropes comes through on each page, with jokes accenting the plots rather than undermining it. Further, the duo’s relentless use of secret passages, wise mentors, betrayers, battles, aerial combat atop giant bats and entertaining animal familiars tap into all the exciting elements that make fantasy appealing while avoiding the hoary clichés of the genre.
Kerascoet, a husband and wife team, handle the illustrations in the “The New Centurions,” and Obion draws “Revolutions.” Both chapters keep to the model types established by Trondheim in the earliest Dungeon books, while still evidencing their own personalities. Kerascoet’s pages make more noticeable use of ink and shadow, as well as displaying occasionally severe camera angles; Obion’s softer lines add a more humorous angle to the second piece. With its looseness and slightly sloppy detail, readers who prefer hyper-real artwork may not glean to Dungeon, and several action pieces are difficult to pull meaning from, but both art teams stick to precise grids and easy-to-read pacing. And both chapters feature impressive character designs and plenty of over-the-top action.
Dungeon is a long-running, extremely popular fantasy series in Europe, and one can only hope it’s achieving similar success in the States. The future of the Dungeon universe continues to unfold in Dungeon: Twilight v.3: The New Centurions, a witty, outrageous all-ages fantasy adventure that truly has appeal for readers of any age bracket.
January 17th, 2011 at 11:32 am
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