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| via Major Spoilers |
From 2012.
As you may or may not recall, after reading the first AOS volume, I was pretty excited. This is a version of the hero's journey that is about as pure as well as radical as you can get.
This second volume is a kind of dream logic. Our heroes Alix and Baltimo, the so-called Alter Egos, become separated for the first time. They are the last hope of the resistance against a world that seeks to fully mechanize everyone. The Archeologists of Light have already fallen. Now it remains to the Archeologists of Shadows to succeed, and all their hopes have been pinned on the pair of travelers who are trying to confirm that they are who other people say they are. In the process, they're exploring the very depths of their whole world.
When I say "dream logic," I mean that this volume in particular moves along swiftly, with Alix and Baltimo moving from one moment, one challenge, to the next without much ceremony. Things happen, not flippantly, but at a steady pace. It's fitting that I invoke dreams, because both are faced with their worst fears (there's at least one good line when they come back together to compare notes on the experience, a trademark of AOS I particularly enjoy).
Patricio Clarey's art remains superb, while Lara Fuentes manages to slow the pace of the story without losing momentum. Does that make sense? In a lot of ways, Once a Nightmare is a lot like Empire Strikes Back, if the whole story had taken place on Dagobah.
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| via the Geek Girl Project |
This particular fellow reminds me that AOS is in a lot of ways what the Star Wars prequels could have been like if George Lucas had done away with pesky humans entirely (he tried his best!). And if that helps, if that's a positive association for you, maybe that'll help you understand this thing better.
Apparently the third volume is still being worked on, which means I'll have to wait (hopefully not too long) to see what happens next. Baited breath!
Sounds fascinating.
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