Here's a quick recap of issue one of The Adventures of Miru: A mouse named Scribbles and his robot 9teen stumble across a creature that fell from the sky. The creature is injured, so they head for the nearest city with a medical facility. When they arrive, the city is full of angry people and they narrowly escape through, the help of one human, who the mouse refers to as 'Boss'. The human examines the creature only to come to the impression that it is a dragon, which was thought to be extinct. The man recaps that dragons were used once in a long ago war by a man named Samsura. Little do they know that the crash was also seen by some real bad dudes that are bent on retrieving the dragon. Issue 2 has our group of the dragon, the rat, and the robot heading for a town named Zither, as they've been told they will find answers there. They're discussing what they know, the rat telling the story of the dragons that had been on the planet long ago, and also how they had been told to 'avoid the shadows.' The path leads them into a dark and scary cavern populated by creepy spirits, all the while being followed by two of the baddies mentioned earlier...
I really enjoyed these books. It's not a completely original story, but I will say this: there are enough different things from different stories pushed together into this one that it feels very fresh and different. Dragons and robots and talking animals and humans and who knows what else, all in one book? I haven't seen anything like this in a long time, and I am getting a kick out of how completely random it all feels. The dragon has lost his memory because of the crash, which is the most overused trope in entertainment today (just my opinion), which I guess is an easy way to begin a story with a clean slate while trickling out a little bit more backstory when necessary.
The writing is good. Most everyone has a sense of humor, even the robot (which he corrects the dragon at one point by specifying that he is, in fact, an android). I've never read anything by this writer, nor can I remember ever reading anything from this publisher before, but I liked what I've read. You won't see any characters that you haven't seen before in other books as far as personality or voice, but it doesn't take away from the story.
The art is a very good fit, and I can only describe it as a mixture between the Invader Zim cartoon and the art from 'The Goon' comics. It's a different style than I've seen in a while and the artist seems very capable of making good character designs and emotions of said characters. Environments are colorful and set the tone of the various scenes well.
Overall I would say that if you enjoy fantasy books with a little bit of everything thrown in topped with pretty decent art, give The Adventures of Miru a try. Don't expect anything too groundbreaking, and especially don't expect this dragon to look like any dragon you're imagining right now. Do, however, expect a fun adventure tale with an unusual cast of characters.
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Writer: Rick Laprade Artist: J. McClary Colorist: Eleonora Dalla Rosa Publisher: Action Lab Entertainment Price: $3.99 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital
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