Nicholson, Jeff – Colonia: Islands and Anomalies

Website (or not, unless he went crazy.  It’s all non-comic mad ramblings over there)

Colonia: Islands and Anomalies

I wanted to like this book, I really, really did. I’d recommend Through the Habitrails to anybody and he really hasn’t done much since then that I’ve liked, so I was completely ready to unreservedly recommend this to people. The bad news is that I can’t, the good news is that it’s possible that I just can’t yet. What he’s done here is create a fantastic world where he’s only scratched the surface, obviously, and this was far from being a bad book. It’s just that there’s nothing to make you want to come back for more. Don’t get me wrong, there are several things in this that intrigue me. The fish-man, the mermaids, Neptune, the ghost fleet, where exactly they are. I have no problem with that part of the book. The thing is that there isn’t enough of it. The vast majority of the time is spent with characters that are almost completely forgettable. Cinnabar, the pirate leader, is pretty much your generic pirate. The two female pirates are more intriguing, if horribly underdeveloped so far. The main character, Jack, is just plain dull. It seems like there are mysteries there, but for now, bleh. His two uncles are worse, if only because I read this last night and I couldn’t tell you their names or what distinguished one from another. Oh yeah, I think one of them was fat. More development is needed on all levels. All that being said, I’m going to continue buying this series. Slow as it is, I’ve always liked his art and it’s improved quite a bit with this series. If you don’t already know his work, I’d say wait a few years until you have a couple more volumes to read before you dig in, otherwise chances are you’ll lose interest before it really gets started. Go visit his website, it’s a pretty good page and it’ll tell you a lot more about the series than I did.

Posted on April 24, 2010, in Reviews and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink. Comments Off on Nicholson, Jeff – Colonia: Islands and Anomalies.

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