Amelia Cole and the Unknown World #1 Review

Amelia Cole and the Unknow World #1

Written by Adam P. Knave and D.J. Kirkbride, Illustrated by Nick Brokenshire. Lettered by Rachel Deering
Review by Ziah Grace

One of the most oft-repeated writing tips is “Show, don’t tell” but Amelia Cole and the Unknown World creates an impressive first issue by doing both in a way that feels exciting and surprising.

Adam P. Knave and D.J. Kirkbridge do a wonderful job introducing the titular character and showing, through fairly smooth exposition, that she has had plenty of earlier unseen adventures before the comic starts, which allows them to jump right into a massive status quo shift right away. While starting a series with plot twists rarely ends well, the two writers do a nice job implying that there is a larger plan behind the scenes. The hints and implications nicely reassure readers that there’s a clear endgame, or at least plans for the future.

Nick Brokenshire, who handles art duty, has a nice eye for character movement and background details, which helps the overall depth of the comic a lot; background characters have little half-stories behind Amelia Cole’s main one, which makes the world feel more developed. The most impressive thing about the art though, is the subtle difference between the magic and non-magic realms that Brokenshire implies through his coloring. Both realms have a mostly soft color pallet of grays, browns and beiges, but whenever magic is used, the coloring becomes hyper-kinetic and bright. Without it being spelled out for us on the page, we can see how powerful magic is in this comic just from the art.

So, in summary…

It’s an interesting comic, and the first issue was certainly interesting enough for me to want to buy the second issue. Plus, it’s $1.99 for 31 pages. That is a steal.