Customer Reviews

Legends of the Dark Crystal Volume 1: The Garthim Wars (Legends of the Dark Crystal: The Garthim Wars) (v. 1)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the 1980's, there was quite a run on whimsical fantasy films. There was "Legend", "Krull", "Labyrinth", "Willow"...Not sure why they are all single word titles. That's kind of curious. Well one that wasn't was The Dark Crystal. The Dark Crystal was the product of Jim Henson, best known as the creator of the Muppets and was one of the more unique and ambitious fantasy films of the era, notably because there no human actors in the film. All of the characters are similarly created creatures although on a much grander scale than the muppets. The Dark Crystal now comes to Manga from Tokyopop.

The setting is a planet called Thra and the Crystal of Truth powers the land. Centuries ago the Crystal cracked and the dominant race called the urSkeks was split into two different races: The gentle and wise Mystics and the evil, vulture-like Skeksis. The Skeksis soon dominate the lands, driving out the Mystics and conquering and destroying other races like the Gelflings (elves basically). The Manga is set several hundred years prior to the events in the film.

A young Gelfling named Lahr, a shepherd by trade, returns home to his village only to find it completely destroyed by the Garthim. The Garthim are the heavy foot-soldiers of the Skeksis. They are giant crab-like creatures who none have ever opposed. Lahr is cornered by one of the beasts and miraculously kills it. He meets Neffi, a female Gelfling whose village suffered the same fate. The Skeksis steal the Gelflings and feed off their life force. They find another village of Gelflings living in a valley, hidden away and protected, or so they think. When the Garthim are spotted in the distance, the Gelflings of the valley have to decide if they want to fight or flee. The book focuses almost entirely on the Gelflings and we see the Skeksis only briefly, but enough to know that there are plotters against the rule of Emperor Skekso.

I use the word whimsical again because it is the word that best describes the film and the Manga. At the time when the film came out, it did garner some parental concern over its dark tone but it's rather tame by today's standards. It's safe to say that if you enjoyed the film and enjoyed that era of fantasy movies, you'll probably like Dark Crystal. It's a change of pace from traditional fantasy fare in that, again, there are no human characters. The Gelflings are not warriors, they are farmers and they are pacifists, first and foremost. It's been many years since I've seen the film but the Manga does hold true to the spirit of that work.

The book is illustrated by Heidi Arnhold and Max Kim in a more traditional style of art than usual Manga. The art is extremely detailed with fine line work, particularly with the Skeksis. A fine effort in this debut of the new series.

This is an excellent work of art, and the manga has some amazing story potential if done right in future iterations. I agree with others that the story seems relatively simple at the current time, but future volumes may fill this in more. I guess I see this more as a character and setting introduction piece but feel that the real meat of the story is yet to come.

Definitely Recommended!

Graphically this one is much better than RETURN TO LABYRINTH. Good job on rendering the Garthims and the Skeksis. Quite detailed stuff!
However I found the story to be too simple. I would have preferred more about the Mystics, Skeksis and Aughra.

I enjoyed this version of the Dark Crystal. It allowed you to look at this world in a different prospective than that of the movie. I did find it lacking the magic aspects which was why the prospective was different. Looking forward to see what the next volume will be like.

I was very worried that this this prequel comic had no chance of living up to the quality of the story of the original movie. I had previously skimmed through the couple of Labyrinth sequel comics that had come out in the past year, and they were pretty horrible, and I expected this to be similar.

Fortunately, though, this volume of the Dark Crystal comic ended up being great. I was not disappointed at all.

Additionally, I feared that this thing was going to have a "fan art" section like the Labyrinth comics had, which were additionally offensively awful. I said very openly that if this comic for The Dark Crystal had a terrible fan art section I was going to tear those pages out and throw them away.

...And the Dark Crystal comic did have a fan art section, but I was actually impressed by the works contained in it.

This gives me much more hope for the movie (which seems to have been pushed back now to 2009). If a similar quality of plot-writing and attention to detail is achieved for the movie as was for this comic, perhaps it will not give me the pain that sequels made decades after the original movie tend to give.

this long-awaited book, written by barbara randall kesel, features an imaginative and impressively crafted "untold tale" from the world of jim henson's THE DARK CRYSTAL. it also showcases the first professionally published comics artwork of newcomer heidi arnhold, a recent graduate of the savannah college of art and design. chapter one is pencilled by the very talented max kim, but heidi's wonderfully detailed illustrations are the main attraction here. fans of THE DARK CRYSTAL will be happy to see that heidi's art style faithfully recreates the "feel" of the classic film. in addition, her dramatic page layouts and solid storytelling skills exhibit a degree of sophistication far beyond many of her peers. admittedly, her art isn't as "manga" as some purists might have preferred, but that didn't bother me any (especially in light of all the other tokyopop american non-manga books).

i was so hoping this book would not prove disappointing (i knew just how hard heidi had worked on it) and it was quite a relief to finish reading it and realize that i can absolutely recommend LEGENDS OF THE DARK CRYSTAL without any reservations whatsoever. this entertaining graphic novel is a must-read for fans of the film and for fantasy fans in general.

by the way, be sure to check out the second volume of RETURN TO LABYRINTH as well...and SEA PRINCESS AZURI volume two is finally out, too (a charmingly sweet story for younger manga/fantasy fans).

The book is Awsome! The authors did a woneerfull job. There is a great story inside the book & the artwork is masterfully done. I love the story as much as I do Jim Henson & brian froud's greatest works. The book is a must read for any Dark Crystal fan.
Be aware it's all printed in black and white. It's so nicely done that I just bought the second book of the two book series & am happy to have added both of them to my important, to me collection of dark crystal merchantdice :)
I really & truely like this book.

This is pretty well done for a graphic novel. I am not a fan of the black and white, or non-color, whichever you want to call it, but the story was pretty well done. I was impressed by it.

I'm a huge Dark Crystal fan,so I've to read this manga.The story is quite good,but the gelflings look too humanlike.My main complaint about this are the skeksis.Those two new ones are quite good,but I don,t find them Brian Froud-like,specially their clothes( not to mention the Emperor's robes or he eating a spider!).I love the film's skeksis,I wonder where they've done in this manga!.Only three of them appear(Skekt-tek doesn't look very much like the film's one).Apart from that,the backgrounds are very beautiful.I like the guest artists section,most of the art is beutiful.I expect to see the film's skeksis in the next volume!

It's a very cliche story, but if you liked the movie "The Dark Crystal" you should enjoy it. It's also a good way to introduse a manga fan the movie. My only real grip is that it is quite short. I read through it in just over an hour and I had lots of distractions.

Overall: A good little book, but not a must have.