I’m not sure why Busiek feels the need for Dusty; he’s the puppy guy who’s sort of the protagonist of the comic. He only ever uses him to deceive the reader. In this issue, the human is doing something he doesn’t tell Dusty about so there’s that surprise for reader and character, but then Busiek’s got Dusty doing something the reader doesn’t know about. So he’s not reliable and not because he’s shifty, but because Busiek’s just using him as a vantage point.
It’s an okay issue of Autumnlands. Dewey does rather well with the disaster and action sequences (the human still doesn’t look good); his art makes the comic. Without it, Busiek would just be spinning his wheels.
There’s more political intrigue this issue. There’s more coincidences leading to big changes in the political spectrum. There’s more implied characterization than actual. It’s slight. It’s gorgeous looking, but Autumnlands’s shallow.
CREDITS
Writer, Kurt Busiek; artist, Benjamin Dewey; colorist, Jordie Bellaire; letterers, John Roshell and Jimmy Betancourt; publisher, Image Comics.
Busiek’s kind of showing his hand with Autumnlands this issue. Not the plot as, though some of it, but more just how the comic’s going to be, how it’s going to read. It’s magic talk around a bunch of anthropomorphic steampunks. Maybe I’m just sick of Busiek not knowing what to do with the narrator. When he just narrates, it’s really annoying.
Yeah, Dewey really can’t draw people. He’ll do this beautiful anthropomorphic giraffe and then the lame human character. Of course, the human character is only lame in how Dewey draws him; Busiek writes the character rather well.
Busiek finally seems to be going somewhere with The Autumnlands. It’s unfortunate he needed a human to get the story moving, but Busiek turns what appears to be a contrived new character into just the thing the series needs.
It turns out the savior of the animal Earth of Tooth & Claw is–shock of all shocks–a human. A savage, but honorable warrior, which makes sense because something about the way Busiek writes the exposition about the savior (before his species was revealed) reminds of Conan.
Writer Kurt Busiek takes a traditional–though not for comics–approach to this first issue of Tooth & Claw. He treats it as a “pilot movie” for the series, introducing a bunch of characters who aren’t going to be important later but are important to this issue’s story. It’ll be interesting to see if he keeps up the structure for the series going forward, will every issue have an actual complete three act structure.