Lore: book one

Written by: T P Louise and Ashley Wood
Art and Design by: Ashley Wood

Lore: book one suffers from a common enough problem: though it looks hip, Lore doesn’t make a lick of sense. Art that is intended to elucidate remains gorgeous but unclear. The narrative gives no aid since the plot jumps perspective painfully and often. The result is a product that is at best intriguing in its promises, and at its worst simply nice-looking nonsense.





The cover of issue two.


What initially drew me to Lore was the book's intriguing format: the sequenced art of a classical graphic novel often gives way here to tracts of prose. At times this presentation seems a conscious attempt to clarify the almost impenetrable visuals. Other times this text reads like I imagine it was intended: as a short piece of prose fiction. These segments are accompanied by highly stylistic visual work that acts as illustration and serves to slow down the pacing of the book, forcing the reader to break the swift page-flipping of the more standard sequential art in Lore. Ultimately this prose remains in the minority, leaving the rest of Lore to the more standard sequential art.




The cover of issue one.

This is all well and good, the trick makes Lore a longer read than most. It’d be a fine formula if the two types of storytelling complemented each other harmoniously. And from time to time, okay, sure. But because of confusing visuals, because of a narrative style that gives the reader virtually no character to anchor themselves to, and because the underlying story is bewildering in its incorporation of mythologies from around the globe, Lore: book one just falls short.

It sure is an appealing aesthetic though. As testament and final comment most of Lore: book one will end up torn from the binding and taped to my walls.

Eric

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