The Hunger and the Dusk #1 // Review
Rolly and Will are picking apples when they see the orcs coming. Naturally, they’re going to panic. Most kids their age will have grown up hearing tales of how they build winter halls with the bones of children and bathe in their blood. In truth...they haven’t bathed in anything in a while. Things are getting desperate as the land is drying up in The Hunger and the Dusk #1. Writer G. Willow Wilson opens a new series that is rendered for the page by artist Chris Wildgoose and colorist Msassyk. It’s an interesting sword-and-sorcery fantasy tale that tilts the tropes of the genre to discover new thematic territory.
The orcs are cut down by something that’s blindingly swift and deadly: the Vangols. They don’t know what hit them until it’s too late. Six months later, the orcs and the humans have agreed to a truce. The human delegation is a bit uneasy. If the orcs aren’t serious about a truce, their meeting place would be the perfect opportunity for an ambush. They may not entirely trust each other, but the humans and orcs MUST stand together against a common threat. That union will be challenged by the sudden appearance of the Vangol.
Wilson weaves an intriguing new perspective on old sword-and-sorcery fantasy tropes as orcs and humans unite in the midst of some kind of impending ecological collapse. Wilson works with an ensemble just big enough to fill the space between two covers as an unlikely human hero is tasked with protecting an orc princess with magical healing powers. Wilson’s dialogue is as crisp as ever. As this is the first issue of a new series, there might be the tendency to want to wow the reader with extreme cleverness. Wilson is wise to keep the scope of the series limited to the here-and-now of the events of the series without overwhelming the reader with a whole lot of unnecessary world-building.
Wildgoose and Msassyk are a vision on the page. The weight of the drama is felt in the more tense panels as orcs and humans come together. The mystery of the Vangol remains persistent throughout much of the first issue. To their credit, Wildgoose and Msassyk don’t make a point of unveiling them in any big reveal. They aren’t mystical or anything like that...they’re just really, really fast and hard to see until they’re right on top of the action. The assault on the meeting place makes a powerful impact on the page. Healing magic looks gorgeous. The brutality of archaic combat looks beautiful. And the art team even manages to make a rather interesting offensive use for a shield look overwhelming when it could have looked quite silly.
There isn’t much in Wilson’s bigger narrative machinery that feels terribly new. Something about the way that she’s casting together the two races feels elegant in its simplicity. All too often, sword-and-sorcery fantasy overloads the page with too many unnecessary details. Wilson knows exactly how much the page will hold and doesn’t try to cram it with even one element more than is totally necessary to deliver the story. It’s a very patient approach for a very promising new series.
