Golem #1 Review

Title

Golem

Vitals:

Publisher – Studio 407
Price - $3.99
Pages – 29 full color pages

Writers:

Scott Barkman and Jeff Lee

Artist:

Mark Louie Vuycankiat

Content:

Golem is for teen plus audiences and has scenes of violence, action, and some gore.

Introduction:

Studio 407 is a small publisher that is looking to combine eastern and western art, concepts, and storytelling. Golem is their latest endeavor off of the successful start with Hybrid, Night and Fog, and Tiger and Crane.

Story:

Golem is set in the war torn country of Sarajevo, circa 1992. The main character is Srdjan Radvic, a man who studies religions and the occult. Stuck in books and ideas, but never living for himself, until one who is close to him is killed by the butchers seeking to rid the land of their very genes. This scientific man takes a leap of faith and builds a golem, a tool of vengeance and justice that will seek out and destroy those that have hurt Srdjan’s life, country, and loved ones. His efforts bring to life a creature that cannot be controlled and is not the lifeless automaton that he is supposed to be. The two come to odds about how to change this wartorn country, with Golem taking a more direct approach, and Srdjan, a reluctant magi wanting innocents not to suffer.

Review:

This first start to the series has a lot of positives and negatives. The story is twenty nine pages long, almost a full third longer than most comics on the shelf today. That helps allay the $3.99 price tag that comes with this comic. The concept is very original, one that doesn’t bring in outright religious overtones, often hard to do in a good light, as most take a darker and more cynical approach. The setting was very different, a full sixteen years in the past in Sarajevo, not a location I’ve seen many comics except for diary epics that told the real story of those places.

There is a lot of action, with Golem acting very much like a Hulk type character, bashing things in with his fists before fully assessing the situation. Bullets fly into and through the mud filled beast, and leave its mark, forcing the magi to make on the fly repairs.

Golem as a character is interesting, built very differently from golems before him, full of knowledge of the real world and possessing a soul that allows him to make his own choices and go against the wishes of his master, the magi. This puts an interesting twist onto the standard story of the golem and adds an extra bit of tension to their relationship.

The negatives of this first venture are there as well. The writers try to pack in too many characters with three of them trying to get Golem to join them, a fourth UN soldier showing up as a potential bad guy, the character we thought was going to be the villain ending too quickly to be climactic.

The art, while showing promise, lacks continuity and finesse. They appear to be blending a manga style into their work and while I see this working in some areas, such as the action and Golem character, didn’t felt it worked with some of the emotion that manga characters tend to employ with the large cheesy smiles and squinting of the eyes. This just didn’t seem to mesh very well.

There were also complications with the character designs. The UN soldier mentioned before was decked out in some kind of power armor with tech communications coming out of his ears. Some of these characters just didn’t make sense in a period piece from 1992. I personally would have like to see a more realistic portrayal of the times, and what the Golem could represent; the anger and intentions of the people being slaughtered.

Conclusion:

Even with the extra content, the price seemed high. Four bucks for something this unpolished seemed high, and I hope the artists continue to grow and finish their work. Golem was an interesting read, with an original concept, but I think the manga influence from the character aspects hurt the comic rather than helped it. The creators went for it, but it seems to me they bit off more than they could chew. Golem won’t be making it into my read pile just yet.