O’Moore, Leonie – Monstrum Horrendum Volume 2 #1

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Monstrum Horrendum Volume 2 #1

Anybody out there remember the first volume of Monstrum Horrendum?  Good for you if you do, but I checked back to my review of the old comic before writing this one and have to say that the artwork is hugely improved this time around.  The sheer vibrancy of those color’s don’t hurt a bit, granted, but the it would look nicer even in black and white.  It seems to retain the basic concept of the first volume, as this is a crew of five adventurers (ship captain, wealthy financier and big game hunter, scientist, “fish boy”, and an old sea dog) who hunt for different monsters in each issue.  This time around they’re trying to track down a giant sea serpent, something that is several times bigger than their ship.  This is the point where you have to decide if you’re going to worry about technicalities in this comic or just go along for the ride.  I picked the second option, but if I didn’t there was a huge problem with how exactly they planned to kill or capture the creature, as a little dynamite or some harpoons seemed ridiculous, and that leap that is made later in the comic towards the sea serpent is not possible with any of these earthly laws of physics.  So screw it, Saturday morning cartoon it is!  On that level it works very well indeed.  You have the captain constantly getting sick of the financier thinking he’s in charge of things, the financier needing to kill this particular serpent to show up his rival, the scientist who seems to have no skill at worldly affairs, the mysterious fish boy (just a boy who speaks an unknown language, not half fish or anything), and the old sea dog being the constant voice of caution of wisdom.  It’s a fun adventure story, the painted look of the book is stunning (I particularly enjoyed Leonie’s willingness to go with the full page spreads when needed), and the pacing was excellent.  The sea serpent doesn’t show up until close to the end of the book, of course, but that only gives us time to let us know the people involved and feel some concern for their safety in all this.  Nicely done all around, and I’m very happy to note that she also sent along the second issue of this series, so I’ll have more thoughts on all this soon.  Here’s a link to buy the book, currently at the odd price of $8.65, but it is in full color and 56 pages you know…