About Heroes

Author and Artist: Doug Petersen
Publisher: Villard

As a child one of my favorite book series was Brian Jacques' Redwall. So when I saw the cover to Mouse Guard, I just couldn't resist. The story is pretty basic; in the mid-12th century mice struggle to live safely and prosper among all of the world’s harsh conditions and predators. The Mouse Guard are not simply soldiers that fight off intruders; rather they are guides for common mice looking to journey without confrontation from one hidden mouse village to another. The Guard patrol borders, find safe ways and paths through dangerous territories and treacherous terrain, watch weather patterns, and keep the mouse territories free of predatory infestation. This reminded me of all those Samurai stories I used to read that were set during the age of Meiji.

What really intrigued me about this first book was the way it each chapter served as a stand-alone story; an introduction to this wonderful world. This is a rarity these days in comics, with every issue being part of a six issue story arc. In the first book Saxon, Kenzie and Lieam are dispatched to find a missing merchant mouse that never arrived at his destination. In doing so they stumble onto much more than they had bargained for. A mouse claiming to carry the legendary Black Axe is certain that the guard is outdated and plans an uprising to control all the towns and villages. Only by working together can the guards defeat this scourge, finding an unlikely ally to aid them along the way. There are some fantastic battles within the book, but I really don't want to give too much away.

Keep this in mind while reading the book though, Peterson tells much more of a story through his drawings than he does the actual text. The book is definetely not dialogue heavy so don't expect this to be a deep meaningful comic. It is instead a very well done adventure story without all the fuss and extra details. The plot jumps about a bit but is definetely understandable. Petersen enmeshes you so thoroughly in this world that he sees little reason to fill you in on some of the background details. Some characters don't physically show up until the last chapter. These are characters that have been mentioned since the beginning of the book.

Originally Petersen self-published the first issue of Mouse Guard as a black and white comic. That version certainly had its own strengths and Petersen brought a lot oft that texture and strong, thin ink lines to these pages. The artwork, to put it lightly, looks absolutely beautiful. From the character designs, it looks like an excessive amount of time went into drawing each character. The scenery is not over looked either; every leaf to tree branch is given time and detail. Petersen brings a certain richness to this book; he is a fantastic storyteller by making the action really easy to follow. After reading this book in color, I don't think I could go back and read it in black and white. The colors look like they were actually painted. Every beautiful color you that brings to mind Fall is in this book; bright oranges to the wonderful reds just fill the backgrounds.

By the end of the book I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I can not wait for the next volume to be collected. Winter is currently being published as single issues. This was a nice little surprise; it's one of those rare treasures you just can't put down. I recommend this book to everyone I know. If you are a fan of Redwall, Secret of Nimh, Bone, or just a fan of great story telling with a fantasy aspect, go and buy this book. At a cost of only 18 dollars I recommend everyone to pick this book up and give it a try and bring out the innerchild in you. A+