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Rating: 
Summary: Deserves much wider exposure
Review: I'd place this on the same level as Neil Gaiman's work with Dave McKean, both in terms of story and art. However, unlike McKean's patchwork surrealism, Morse relies on a minimal, flowing style, often using blank space and page layout to their own ends. It might be disconcerting to some that the artistic style shifts according to each story's perspective, but it's all part of a greater whole. The groundwork is laid in the first chapter, which is told through the eyes of a boy in a Japanese monastery as he finds an odd sword in the river. Things then shift to the view of a young boy in 1947 who is transported by aliens to a planet inhabited by talking marsupials (who expect him to be their savior). In the middle, it shifts to present day, in which an elderly woman is reminiscing about her missing son. Lost yet? Don't worry. Though the book jumps through time and vision, that's the point. This is a story about the beginnings of things and how everything's tied together. It manages to cover a complete rebuttal of the King Arthur mythos *and* the story of creation, all without becoming the least bit ponderous or self-important. I'd place this among Gaiman's "Mr. Punch" and the "Watchmen" in terms of something that completely realigned my view of what the comics medium can do.
Rating:
Summary: Deserves much wider exposure
Review: I'd place this on the same level as Neil Gaiman's work with Dave McKean, both in terms of story and art. However, unlike McKean's patchwork surrealism, Morse relies on a minimal, flowing style, often using blank space and page layout to their own ends. It might be disconcerting to some that the artistic style shifts according to each story's perspective, but it's all part of a greater whole. The groundwork is laid in the first chapter, which is told through the eyes of a boy in a Japanese monastery as he finds an odd sword in the river. Things then shift to the view of a young boy in 1947 who is transported by aliens to a planet inhabited by talking marsupials (who expect him to be their savior). In the middle, it shifts to present day, in which an elderly woman is reminiscing about her missing son. Lost yet? Don't worry. Though the book jumps through time and vision, that's the point. This is a story about the beginnings of things and how everything's tied together. It manages to cover a complete rebuttal of the King Arthur mythos *and* the story of creation, all without becoming the least bit ponderous or self-important. I'd place this among Gaiman's "Mr. Punch" and the "Watchmen" in terms of something that completely realigned my view of what the comics medium can do.
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