Viking #4

This book is over-the-top beautiful. Nic Klein uses the large format to really showcase his painted art that leaps from carefully rendered illustrations to expressionist streaks of color depending on the mood and/or speed of the action. While some of the earlier issues were a bit confusing, this one is more or less straight ahead action. The Heist is on while the King's right hand man is panicking that he has fallen out of favor. Their paths cross and bloody havoc ensues. And the ending is a nice twist, leaving you with a good "Where do they go from here" feeling. There is not a lot of new character development in this one, all the stalking, plotting, fighting, and out-badassing one another kind of eats up all the oxygen. Oh, I think everyone gets stabbed at least once.

Speaking of stabbings, I was all ready to give this book 5s across the board but I just could not get over the stupid hand. Eight pages in Aki gets the back of an axe through his right hand. It is clearly his right hand. You can see him clutching it for four panels. Orm even makes a joke about it. Then on page 10, it looks like his left hand is bloody. I let that one go, as he seemed generally bloody and it wasn't clear whether it was his huge axe wound. Then comes page 12, where the wound is obviously on his left hand and his right hand appears fine.

Look, I hate nitpicking. Comic books get put out on hectic schedules and errors slip through the cracks, but come on. This is pretty damn major. I stopped reading and flipped back and then flipped forward and back and forward to make sure I wasn't crazy. The artist forgot what hand got cut, despite the fact he must have had those pages right in front of him. It pulled me completely out of the Viking world and what was a damn engrossing story. So a point off for that, on what was otherwise amazing art.