Scurry Review (2023)
Summary: The Secret of Nymph with a supercharger, anyone who is a fan of animals or stories featuring them should check it out.
5
A tremendous achievement
Due to some unknown catastrophe humans have disappeared, a colony of house mice living off the scraps of humans is struggling to survive and there has been a long dark winter that does not seem to want to end. Wix the colony’s best scout and Pict the daughter of the colony end up out in the wild due to a series of events and Wix swears he will find Pict and get back to the colony.
That is a very short explanation of this story as it manages to cram in an impressive amount of story even for a multi hundred page graphic novel. This is the Secret of Nymph supercharged and goes more into fantasy territory with the various animals developing their own society and trying to rule as the humans did.
The story was originally a web comic and on sale from the creator, but that was only a limited edition and has now sold out. Hopefully the re-release will mean more people will be able to experience the story.
This is an epic achievement even for a major comics studio and to have it be the work of just the one person is something else. The creator said it was nearly five years work and it seems to be as big a journey that the characters in his own story go through themselves.
The story itself does remind me of a fantasy epic crossed with something like Watership Down or Milo and Otis. Make no mistake there is animal death depicted in this story but it makes sense in relation to the world and the story that is being told. The characters themselves know it is a dangerous world they are living in and their lives are hard and short.
The character designs are excellent and the animals each have their own personality but still look realistic enough. Having them look totally true to life would not really fit in with the story, it does help artistically that some things are stylised or they have their own characteristics that you can tell each of the animals apart. Even the “bad” characters of the cats and the wolves all have their own names although not referred to as such in the story.
For me the highest compliment that I can give this is that I would consider buying the trade paperback myself after reading it. The only other title I have done that with so far is the Strange Dogs comic so far.
Comic details:
Creator, Writer, Artist, Letterer: Mac Smith
Collection Editor: Alex Antone
Collection Design + Production: Jillian Crab
Format: Paperback, colour, 316 pages
Genre: Fantasy/Drama
Publisher: Skybound Comet
Published Date: February 21st 2023
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