By: Mike Carey (writer), Leonard Kirk (pencils), Ed Tadeo (inks), Guru eFX (colors), Rob Steen (letters), Sebastian Girner (assistant editor) & Nick Lowe (senior editor)
The Story: Troubled teenage girl with odd birthmark keeps having very vivid dreams where she is whisked away to another reality featuring pirates.
What’s Good: First, a caveat; I read a grand total of ZERO issues of any CrossGen titles when they were first coming out, so I have no experience with the previous Sigil series and am wholly reviewing this as a new reader.
If you follow the sales trends for comics, you’ve no doubt heard the refrain that the comic publishers need to do something to “grow the market”. Somehow we’ve got to get more people buying comics! But, the trick is that you don’t grow the market by just offering up a 6th ongoing X-Men title that will appeal to the hardcore X-Men fans. It would help to bring in people from outside the “normal” comic demographic, and to do that the publishers are going to have to create some stories that aren’t about superheroes.
With that thought in mind, Marvel deserves some credit for relaunching Sigil in this sales environment. It probably won’t sell all that well (Avengers and Batman aren’t even selling all that well right now), but they need to experiment with tossing some “other” types of stories out there as miniseries and see what might be able to get some traction.
I really enjoyed Sigil. It tells a very straightforward story of a girl named Sam Rey. She’s a high school kid whose mother has died and her dad appears to be doing the best he can for her, but life doesn’t seem to be easy. She’s not popular at school, struggling in some of her classes and getting picked on by the bullies. But, through all of this, she keeps getting whisked “away” in kinds of lucid dreams where she sees a world of pirates who may have some connection to her dead mother. I was very intrigued by the story on a few fronts. For one thing, I’m an unabashed fan of teenage-girl-growing-up stories. You can just tell that this is going to have some of the vibe that makes me enjoy stories like Batgirl or Morning Glories. For another, any man with a daughter is probably going to feel a connection with this title just because it shows a father who seems like a real dude. He’s not an alcoholic, or abusive, or so consumed with his work that he has no time for his daughter. He’s just a normal dad doing the best he can under trying circumstances.
Finally, I’m just intrigued to see what happens with the story. Anytime you read a new first issue (a TRUE first issue, not the Wolverine #1 of the month), you have to ask, “Do I want to see how this turns out?” And, in this case I do. I want to see what the nature of the magical power that is summoning Sam between worlds and I want to know how this connects with her mother.
The art is quite good. It seems a little on the side of photorealistic, but in a good way. I’d compare it to the months when Salvador Larroca is doing his good work and it isn’t “Greg Land bad stuff” by any stretch. It just looks like the artist has uses photographs to inform him about what certain facial expressions look like and that’s a great thing. It tells the story very effectively and that’s the most important thing.
What’s Not So Good: If I have one minor thing to pick at, it would be the character design for Sam herself. She’s drawn like she’s kinda hot and that makes it a little hard to believe that she’d be picked on so much at school. Usually the cute girls have enough friends who want to be around them that there aren’t bullying opportunities.
And, the bully herself… I know the idea was to make her look big and imposing, but she ends up looking almost mannish (like she needs to tie a scarf around her neck to cover the Adam’s apple). It’s a minor point, but something that distracted me every time she was on the page.
Conclusion: A pretty strong first issue. Very new reader friendly. I imagine there are some goodies here if you’re familiar with previous versions of Sigil, but prior knowledge isn’t necessary. And….it has NOTHING to do with Fear Itself. Isn’t that refreshing?
Grade: B
-Dean Stell
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Filed under: Marvel Comics Tagged: | Crossgen, Dean Stell, Ed Tadeo, Guru eFX, Leonard Kirk, Marvel, Mike Carey, Nick Lowe, review, Rob Steen, Sebastian Girner, Sigil, Sigil #1, Sigil #1 review
Hey Dean,
Nice review. I was a big fan of the Crossgen titles back when they were all the rage. I am looking forward to reading this title, not only to see how it compares but also how it stands on its own as a “re-imagined” series.