Mouse Guard: Belly of the Beast
Published by: Archaia Studios Press
Story & Art: David Petersen

22 pages

Rating: 4 out of 5

Premise: The world is a dangerous place for small, furry, anthropomorphic rodents, so the Mus genus has created a “Mouse Guard” to protect mousekind from deadly predators and such.

Synopsis:

A grain peddler goes missing, so three members of the Mouse Guard are sent to investigate. We are introduced to Lieam, Kenzie, and Saxon. Think of these as your three musketeers (mouseketeers? Sorry. Couldn’t resist.). They happen upon the grain seller’s overturned cart, do some more snooping, and come across a little more than they bargained for in the form of a large snake. They save the day and at the end, find a plot twist to send us back to our local comic shop posthaste for the second book in the series.

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Review:

This is an excellent book from top to bottom. Petersen’s art is sublime, and his story grabs us and takes us along for a ride. His story has a similarity to heroic adventure tales like The Three Musketeers, King Arthur, Robin Hood, and even Beowulf. The place and character names certainly reflect a Norman/Celtic/Anglo-Saxon heritage.

Petersen does an excellent job of characterization in the limited space he has allowed himself. We see Lieam as the brave by-the-book soldier. Kensie is the wise and ever-observant voice of reason. Saxon is the rash young fighter, always more than willing to leap into danger. These characters are unquestionably heroic, and we’re rooting for them as a team.

It is rare that the art in a book makes me take notice. It must either be especially good or especially poor. In this case, the art is especially good. Petersen uses a lot of pen techniques to create texture and lighting effects. Especially noticeable is his use of cross-hatching in the backgrounds to achieve shadow and subtle changes of color. The coloring is clean and interesting to look at page after page. Both the pen techniques and color give the book the feel of a romantic adventure tale.

The actual printed format is a bit different than we’re used to seeing in a comic shop. It’s neither standard comic size nor digest/manga size. It’s kind of a squarish book about an inch wider than your regulation comic. I have not problems with this - just helping you find it should you go looking.

Petersen has remarked in interviews that he originally was hoping to publish children’s picture books - not comic books. If he were to ever steer that way, his style is good enough that I might pick his work up for my hypothetical future kids. For now, I’m just picking up the other five issues of Mouse Guard.