"The Curse of the Ravens" brilliantly combines the past and the present, showing how our beloved characters have changed over the course of their journey. Here are flashbacks in which a young, clean-shaven and self-confident protagonist drinks beer alone in a tavern and deals with a gang of local brawlers with lightning speed. And now the much older Geralt is watching with a nostalgic and proud smile as Ciri punches impolite fans. If you haven't followed the events in The Witcher world very closely before, then it may be difficult for you to assess the depth of the relationship between the three central protagonists, but the overall story is still worth paying attention to. This is a short story in the best traditions of Gothic legends about revenge, ancient curses and sins that neither humans nor otherworldly forces forgive.
The author's drawing surprises with its carelessness. It looks like it's drawn randomly, and it looks great and works at the same time. The contours are devoid of smoothness and drawn in several movements, without excessive post-processing. Special attention is paid to the faces of the characters, while the body and background may resemble a daub sketched with a felt-tip pen in a graphic editor. And when combined, these elements look cool, and if you constantly move forward, according to the history of rails, it does not cause discomfort. On the contrary, there is a feeling that all these blurred elements are deliberately devoid of detail in order to convey the features of our memory through the drawing. After all, it's much easier to remember the elements that we focused on during an event than what happened on both sides. At first, it seemed to me that the author would develop this artistic technique and as the story progressed, the drawing would become more and more ragged, conveying the hero's state of consciousness, but this did not happen. While researching the artist's other works, I realized that this is his usual manner and there is nothing special about it.
In our country, the comic was published by the publishing house Native Speech. It chose an enlarged format, 23.4 x 30 cm, which it had already used for the Batman comics. The Damned One" and "The Joker". This significantly increased the price tag of the publication. And in the case of Bermejo's works, this is a justified measure, his detailing of panels and work with the composition can be considered for a long time. And in the case of Garlin, the decision is moot. On one side of the scale is the cool work with the composition by Stepan Sheich, on the other is his weak detail of the panels. This is exactly the case when I would like the publication to repeat the story of the "Joker", appearing first in the usual format, and only then in an enlarged one for connoisseurs. The price of a copy is 400 rubles, which is quite expected, given the volume (192 pages) and size. Unfortunately, there are no additional materials, but you always want them, especially in unusual format editions.
As for the visual component, I liked Joe Querio's style more, which illustrated the previous volumes of the series. But it's a matter of habit - after just a few pages, Peter Kowalski's drawing seems quite organic. Perhaps at times the protagonists' faces seem a little strange, but the style perfectly emphasizes the horror elements of the story and creates a tense, uncomfortable atmosphere.
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