It was one of the things I on my new year’s resolution list, so this is the first in hopefully a long line of comic book reviews, or as I like to refer to them Graphic Novel reviews. The first to receive the proper treatment is The Technopriests.

Alexandro Jodorowsky is a creative genius. Now I don’t give such a title easily. In fact in terms of writing, the only other man to completely take my imagination away is a certain Alan Moore. The thing is though both these distinguished gentlemen approach sequential storytelling from COMPLETLY different angles.

Alexandro has a mad idea on every page, sometimes several mad ideas. At the same time he explores an enormous breadth of topics in which his stories are based,…and they’re all well developed worlds where his character live.

The Technopriests is based in the same Universe as The Incal and Saga of the Metabarons. With Saga of the Metabarons his approach was to instil drama into the work. A sense of serious sci-fi in the air. Obviously so as to not make it too serious he put 2 robots who tell the story (I’ll stop talking about SOTM, I need to leave something for that instalment); in The Technopriests he utilises a similar method of story telling. Except this is a digital autobiography, by the main character Albino and his sidekick rodent Tinigrifi.

It’s Albino’s story and how he gets to be like the moses, however the twist is he’s leading 300,000 technopriests to a galaxy where healthy human relationships are valued more the scientific achievement.

The Good. The setting is amazing. He’s created a world, very far in the future to ours, and he’s extrapolated certain aspects of our lives and blown them up to great degrees. Within the story he offers social commentary that point fingers at people now. However I feel that Jodo is best at when he’s describing:

In the same manner, I saw myself approaching the end of time, roving between galaxies...I had become an immense and sublime angelic being.

Trust me absolutely not even a hint of a spoiler there. What makes this work special is just how much happens in the space of 150 pages. It’s the scope of the work and rather than what is going to happen, you’re always wondering, how the hell is that going to happen. This is a trademark Jodo trick. You think you know what’s coming around the corner because he’s put you in that situation, then he pulls the rug from under you.

The Bad. The thing about Jodo’s here is that at times he’s trying to make it a bit more fun, by way of the dialogue which sometimes comes off a bit wrong in my opinion. Sometimes the characters fall in love at first sight thus declaring their undying love etc and to be honest it just doesn’t ring true. To me that’s the only weakness of this story, I’d love to blame it on the translation, but I respect Justin Kelly as he was responsible for the immaculate translation on The White Lama (more on this fantastic series in the future for sure). No this is a story driven issue, which fits in with the style established with the earlier work The Incal.

The Artists: Zoran Janetov & Fred Beltran. In terms of artwork, these two men have done an amazing job elevating their previous collaborations. For me seeing all the creatures and planets and vehicles this man created was enough to earn him a great deal of respect from me. His work on Avant L’incal (Before the Incal) was less polished. This work shows some serious maturity in form, ranging from facial expressions to backgrounds to body language.

Format Originally this story was presented in 3 hardcover books, oversized. I wouldn’t trade my White Lama books for anything, and I’m buying the Metabarons books in French since that’s the only way I can get Juan Gimenez’s work at that scale. Having said that, 3 books for 10 quid (that’s roughly $15 since you guys don’t pay a lot of rubbish we have to pay for over here), it’s pretty good value for money. The paper is top notch. It’s slightly larger in format than your traditional comic book size. All 3 covers are reproduced at the back which again is a very nice addition, DC generally tend to screw this aspect up whenever they can. So I’ll be buying other Humanoid Books in this format without much fear in the future over production values, and would recommend it be adapted by other publishers as well.

On the web: DC Comics Humanoids Publishing