The exceptions are the dramatic establishing panels where the details of the background are important. The panel backgrounds in Amulet are often more implied that realized, with muted suggestions of detail overlayed with gradients of textured color. Again, this is very like Anime, but without the slavish projection of Anime’s exaggerated stylizations to which so many young comics artists are inordinately prone. The drawings of the characters in Amulet are simplified, almost cartoonish delineated with thin, single-weight outlines, and filled with areas of flat color or gentle gradations. In both the set up and handling of the story you can see the influence of Anime masters like Hayao Miyazaki. This is where a comics artist’s skills as a visual storyteller are tested, and Kibuishi shows that he has studied some of the masters, probably both in comics and in film, where many of the same problems must be resolved. Many sequences are presented wordlessly, or almost so, relying on the flow of sequenced images to convey the narrative. You’ll find no panel-length word balloons with characters expounding on back-story or setup, no caption panels, no pages of exposition everything is shown graphically, cinematically. One of the most interesting aspects of the book, though, is the way Kibuishi has chosen to create his narrative. I won’t describe it in too much detail because I enjoyed the little surprises I encountered in the story and I don’t want to deny you the same. In it, Kibuishi combines some themes he has favored in his work on Copper and his longer pieces in Flight - the viewpoint of children, the visual textures of elements of the natural world like rocks and water, fanciful imaginative vistas, atmospheric color and eccentric flying machines. It is something of a coming of age story in that they have the ability to take actions and effect events, but must take responsibility as well.
The story is a fantasy adventure in which two siblings, an older sister and younger brother, must rescue their mother from deadly peril. Kazu Kibuishi, who I have mentioned before, both in reference to his wonderful online comic Copper (also here), and as the primary force behind the Flight comics anthologies, has been hard at work for the last two years on a graphic novel project that has finally been released.Īmulet, Book One: The Stonekeeper is the first volume of a larger, three volume project (though it reads well as a story in itself).
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