Viking #1

The newest issue of Walking Dead again provided a free reprint of another Image comic. This time it was the "Viking crime comic" Viking. Maybe it is just me or the lack of color really took the comic down a notch for me, but I wasn't too impressed.

I had an extremely difficult time telling characters apart from each other, they all looked like shaggy vikings. That is to be expected of course, but I really don't know who the leads are or what any character's relation to anyone else is. I also have to assume that everything happening in the first issue is happening at roughly the same time. I couldn't really tell location or time changes from the way things were presented. In fact, after I got to the eel-fishing scene (where some characters are using a horse-head to get eels out of a river) I started skimming because I couldn't tell how any of the interludes I had seen so far related to each other. In fact, the only recurring thing I could find was that the fancy sword used by a slain character in the beginning is discussed laster in the comic. Needless to say, I don't think this preview will bring me back again.

It's too bad, because the art is very nice in places, there's a neat scene with a bear facing off with a lady and her father that looked nice. I just had too hard of a time discerning the importance of characters and scenes.

Poor