In an industry filled with so many cookie cutter styles and so much emphasis on the stagnant superhero genre, it’s refreshing to see Marvel breathing new life into comics with Soleil, a company in collaboration with Marvel that will be bringing Europe’s top titles overseas for the first time! You may have seen some of their other launch titles on the stands already such as; Skydoll, Universal War One and Scourge of the Gods. Now with Samurai, artist Frederic Genet and Jean-Francois Di Giorgio are unleashing their wicked series for the first time in the west!
Not since the seventies has the European market been given a fresh new face in North America and given a chance to show the west what they can do. In similar energies, Samurai brings a new meshed aesthetic of American, European and Japanese visuals to readers. It’s hard to believe that one man could put so much detail and effort into each page and each panel, and yet Genet never lets up! There are pages with no less than thirteen panels all of which are clear and concise and easily comparable to most fully rendered comic pages other artists offer with half as many panels. This makes a story of a wandering Samurai searching for his brother and enigmatic prophesies pursued by dangerous warlords all the more enticing. The creators say of their series that, “It is closer to history and a world connected to reality. We try above all, to make our series give a felling of the Japanese atmosphere; our aim is to make the reader travel through in this special ambiance as we would travel with the movies of Kurosawa.” Not since Crossgen’s “the Path” have we seen a serious Samurai comic and I hope it doesn’t go unnoticed by the fans.
Like all of Soleil’s titles, the original French format of 48 page stories is unedited and sold for a price tag of $5.99, the same price you would normally pay for an annual. This first issue is a worthy purchase to anyone who loves great art and samurais that will hopefully stay up on this high level as the series continues.
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