king’s warriors
cartoonist: Huahua Zhu
Publisher: burjhan publishing house /$15
September 2024
king’s warriors. Wearing a golden helmet, a bloody sword, and riding a huge lion horse, the name of this mount does not match its various forms. Marla. She led the charge at Calvary. Once, when she was very young, before her brother went to bed and before she took up arms in a fierce battle with undescribed and previously unimaginable creatures, the Sufferers attacked her town . Her deal with the king will end her brother’s slumber. Her brutality has brought the land to its knees, but the greatest threat to the king lies outside the kingdom. Alchemist. Huahua ZhuThis dark and slender book tells the story of Mara’s last awakening of her brother, her journey with her lion-horse Roar to where soldiers and kings fear to tread, and what she discovers there.
tonally like Katsuya Teradais legendary Salda Concept art depicting the unorthodox hero’s quest Ursula K. Jeanof earth sea cyclemelancholy the farthest shore and hope Tehanu. European feudal aesthetics blend into Asian style. Zhu’s works use delicate lines to represent dynamic battles, ornate weapons and ancient scenes. Soft watercolor painting of golden spiers and shadowed corridors. Linnea Sturt Another artist synthesized these aesthetics. Emma Rios and Lin Huiweiof Mirror. Nagabeor Studio Ghibli’s adaptation of howl’s moving castle: It feels like a comic period piece from somewhere else, rather than a reimagining for familiarity with local audiences.
After all, the kings and their kingdoms in this story remain a mystery to us. Yet we all know what a terrifying creature a king can be. What’s behind the mask has nothing to do with it.
There is an element that can king’s warriors this reminds me of lord dunsany. More than a hundred years ago, the architects of cosmic horror were laying the foundations for fantasy stories. The medieval world, the last generation of monsters – now they slip through the cracks into our world, but the world then was theirs. Mara and Roar transcended the human world, crossing the fields and reaching the land where they could not put down roots after the woods grew taller than time. A bridge leads to the devil’s carnival on one side and a castle on the other side. Mara met a man on the road, his warning choked by spitting black tentacles, his outstretched arms stretching like hot taffy, his fingers turning into claws.
It descends into a more cursed darkness and deeper monsters. But gradually, intertwined with previous memories, time is getting closer and closer to the Golden King and the kingdom. Despite the lions and horses, you still feel a sense of safety and normalcy in the same world, Hal Foster Conflict, human war. Safe and normal for the citizens of the kingdom, of course, but not for those trampled under the hooves of cavalry or trampled by the tips of spears. Normal means the monster is a soldier, not a demon Danteof Divine Comedy Like at the foot of the castle hill.
Zhu’s color palette for the book reinforces the old-school fantasy concept of wandering from our world to the realm of Wonderland. Blue, gold and black. Memory is only blue and gold, while the waking world is mostly blue and black. At the borders of the kingdom, blues, yellows and blacks are mixed with a hint of green, but only at the beginning of the story. Mara and Growl rode to where the green grew. This was one of many small details that I absorbed as atmosphere on my first read and revealed itself on return, becoming much larger as I was no longer emotionally gripped by the plot. Number of gallows. A rare coin intended by Mara as a gift to her brother Eco, which retains its color when other colors fade.
The stylization choices limit the color palette, which really shines a light on my comparisons to Terada Salda Concept art. But choosing unique color tones all point to king’s warriors is an invention that befits the nature of folklore (rather than a realistic record of fact), and the particular treatment and presentation of the story, the thoughtfulness it wishes to convey in its telling, again befits a fairy tale and its oral roots in history.
Zhu’s art echoes the meticulously crafted intent of medieval manuscripts and illustrations. Not a simple tribute Cyril PedrosaThe amount of visual detail in his illustrations is astonishing golden age. king’s warriors Embracing concepts found in Dunsany’s early 20th century work and the work of his peers, but this execution burjhan publishing house This book is completely one of the most avant-garde comics at home. peo2 (Fantasy about no love lostscience fiction novel), or a wonderful comic Wei Rang. Pocket-sized artwork.
This raises the question, how much is enough? There’s a then, there’s a now, there’s a long middle between them, with a specific background but barely explored, and there’s one that one can barely imagine what comes next. The work we witnessed paints a portrait. The majesty of a warrior. The location where they were trapped and the access to it. If this book were six times as long, I could read it. But maybe it would be better for all the stories left untold to remain as they are? We readers live in an age where the concept of legend is monetized (if not weaponized) to the point where I mostly No Want to see more stories that fill the gaps. they are not blank. Zhu told this Stories, I’m happier in chaos than in endings, in mystery rather than history.
So it’s too short on the right side. The conclusion is a cliff of imagination. They may have been glimpses and fragments, but they were right—moments that mattered to Mara’s heart. Their depiction of the world has meaning not found in the procedural elements of fighting humans, conquering lands, and exploring. Much of the book is spent on the cursed road leading to the Alchemist’s castle. But the top of the mountain is not a physical thing, but a hilltop fortress. Why she did it was always more important than what Marla was doing. king’s warriors It’s a journey to understand what she does.
king’s warriors Available from Bulgilhan Press or wherever cooler comics and books are sold.