Page 45 Review by Stephen
A huge endeavour for a tiny person!
I love a good quest, and this is a most excellent quest involving Thor, Odin and Fenrir, the enormous, sable-coated wolf sired by the trickster god, Loki. It is ever so black and bad tempered!
Rich in the warmest of colours and with a superb sense of scale, HILDA fans are going to lap this up; ZELDA fans too because young Arthur is essentially an Icelandic Link, addicted to exploration and a certain degree of pilfering, forever adding artefacts to his arsenal of treasured possessions.
This includes the Hand of Time, an actual hand (a bit creepy!) which Arthur once discovered high up in an ancient tower, sat on an ancient stone column at the top of some ancient stone steps and bathed from behind in moonlight cascading though a window in the shape of a stopped clock. I imagine Arthur must have successfully interpreted this clue before whipping it away, for the Hand of Time has the power to freeze anyone who touches it - which is a neat piece of self-defence, when you think about it.
It's probably best to use gloves.
Arthur's also adept at making friends in high places, like the mighty red rooster Wind Weaver, nested towards the top of even more ancient, tall, craggy cliffs. Such was Arthur's fortitude and determination that he managed to climb that nigh-vertical escarpment and return to Wind Weaver her missing egg, against all odds unbroken.
He also once rescued a cat from a tree.
Arthur is going to need to summon all his courage and command his quickest of wits, however, in this daring quest to restore fire to his otherwise frozen town after its gigantic brazier is knocked down and extinguished by Fenrir. I told you it had a bad temper.
To be honest, the townsfolk aren't that much better, especially the adults. They scowled at Arthur and his adventures, his trophies and trinkets and the little goblin folk who followed him in rootin', tootin' celebration after he mediated an end to their war with the fairies. But, battered by Fenrir's assault, the citizens are sure going to need our young Arthur now, for the only way to restore fire to the town's brazier is to curry the favour of Thor, and the only way to curry Thor's favour is to help him defeat the five-hundred-foot Fenrir.
For this meticulous Arthur will need three things: to capture a cat's footfall, to snip off the roots of a mountain, and remember old lessons learned.
The Asgardians have tried to vanquish the beast by themselves, but Fenrir nearly squished Frejja, barely missed breaking Baldr between its teeth and successfully bit poor Tyr's arm off. Can frail Arthur triumph where the mighty gods have failed?
In every all-ages / young-readers' great graphic novel there must be certain things present including wit, rules and exploration for eyes.
Oh, you tut at the term "rules" but I didn't write that they couldn't be broken! What I mean is that a child will see through any gaps in narrative logic just as easily as an adult would, and might even be far less forgiving. They are ever so astute! This is a beauty, so casually foreshadowing whatever will follow so that its pay-off is perfect and caught me completely by surprise. But it's all there! All of it!
The wit lies both in the background details, the denouement above, and in the keep-them-guessing intrigue which is scattered throughout. How can Arthur possibly capture a cat's footfall? It's insane! And a mountain doesn't have any roots: that had me stumped.
As to the eye-candy, there are maps - yes, maps! - and so many pages which reward real inspection, from old-duffer Brownstone's armchair introduction contrasted with his hours-later adieu (look at what's happened to those bookshelves behind him in the intervening time!) to the mapped-out meandering's of Arthur's double-page sea-voyage. There tiny fingers will love to trace the serpentine path of our diminutive hero's trials and tribulations past pirate ships and old beardy Neptune, through the coils of undulating sea monsters and battling a giant squid which is ever so intent on wrestling Arthur's oars from him.
Then there's beardy Brownstone's initial, proud appearance inside his family vault of exotic heirlooms bathed in a spotlight. Young eyes are immediately invited to scan every shadow-strewn corner for curiosities: there are chests and chalices, a deep-sea diving suit, skulls and statues, a one-eyed owl, things floating in jars, swords, stones, and swords in stones. Oh wait - I think the second one is stuck in a giant eyeball! There are swords stuck everywhere in Valhalla's hall. Can you find them all?
I mentioned Todd-Stanton's sense of scale - vital for making a quest like this seem as daunting as possible - and it's everywhere from the fearsome Fenrir who towers over the brazier, and the brazier itself, so vast that it looms large in comparison to the rest of the town when seen from afar. On that very same shot, so high in the sky, you'll spy that ancient tower which housed The Hand of Time and, on the mountainside opposite, Wind Weaver perched on her nest. Furthermore, Arthur may be small when standing beside adults and smaller still in Thor's imposing presence, but compared to the goblin folk he's a giant.
Finally we come to the gods' hall library and it is as vast as vast can be. Poor Arthur most read every dusty tome in his research for find the roots of a mountain. You can see him scampering up ladders, balancing books on his head, receiving a nasty surprise, but if you look really, really carefully...
I love it. I love this to bits.
