I wrote before about what a great find Penny-Farthing Press was. Top shelf quality, and on sale which was nice. Moby does not buy too many comics nowadays, mostly art, and that is how I found Anne Steelyard and the Garden of Emptiness.
Anne Steelyard is sort of a female Indiana Jones type, but is based loosely on a real person. It has everything you could want in a story, and I would be shocked if a movie does not get made from this source material someday. Seriously, it has action, adventure, drama, adventure, romance,…and more adventure.
The story was penned by Barbara Hambly and has won many awards and been widely reviewed, so I am not going to bother doing anything in depth here. Barbara did a great interview with comicbookresources, and that should do if you need more on the story itself. Mostly just want write about the art, the artist, and give readers a good idea of why they should give Anne Steelyard a chance.
It started by collecting some artwork from James Taylor, the inker on the series. The art team apparently changed beginning with Act 2, when Alex Kosakowski turned the duty of pencils over to Ron Randall, while James continued to ink the series through the final Act. What is so impressive about this title, and most every title from Penny-Farthing Press, is the quality of every aspect of the work. There is no quantity over quality thing going on here. It was also nice to have the story told as a graphic novel, and not in individual issues, so the story could follow a natural pace and flow without regard for issue length.
It might not be for everyone, a lot of people expect comic and graphic novel art to always be done ‘The Marvel Way’, and that’s fine; there is a lot of work out there like that. But with Anne, it’s not really necessary. It would be a detriment to have the artwork be overblown in this case, because we are trying to remember that this is a real woman dealing with all the prejudices and obstacles that her gender places in the way of her making her own way in the world (You go girl!). Suffice it to say the artwork really works with the story, you can check it out yourself from the sample here and also at the various links in this post to see for yourself.
Here’s a decent sample that gives you an good idea of the how Ron and James’ work looks, without color (click to enlarge):
You can order the Graphic Novels directly from the publisher here and get them for about 1/3 off the cover price. They are also available on iTunes in digital format (DRM-protected epub) for only$1.99, by far the cheapest way to read them.
I have collected a few pages of the original art from Act II and Act III, and it seems some is likely still available from the artists, James Taylor and Ron Randall. I am not looking to sell these, but though it would be nice to share them. These pages are inked by James Taylor over Ron Randall’s blueline pencils and that lets us see the slight differences between the originals and what was inked.
I am really, really glad I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to collect these pages, and now share some of them with you. So, here’s a bit more from Anne Steelyard and the Garden of Emptiness. Enjoy!
All art © Penny-Farthing Press.
