Here at Comic Booked, we are committed to growing our relationships with small press publishers. To make that happen, you can always come here on Sundays and find our Small Press Sunday column to see some great comics from the small press world. This week I will be reviewing a great series called Secret Life of Crows.
Raven Gregory and Nei Ruffino bring us an amazingly beautiful story in the first issue of Secret Life of Crows #1. This is the story of the crow. During the day, the same dark feathered bird that you can see on any powerline, but as the sun goes down, a change happens. The bird that was melts into the girl that is. Her freedom is the night sky and she soars, but her heart beats and searches for something that she feels that she has missed or lost. Mostly she is just searching for something to prove that she is not alone. At the first touch of the sun’s light, the girls explodes into light that returns to the crow, breathing in new life, and the crow flies off, till the next sunset.
In Secret Life of Crows: Feathers into Flame, the story adds a new character, a male sunbird that erupts from the sunset and flies to earth looking for his other half, the thing to prove he is not alone. The problem is that, when the sun goes down, and the crow changes to a girl, the man reverts to a bird and is gone. The loneliness is so strong, but, upon the first glance between the two, they know they are no longer alone. This drives them to find each other and break the threshold that separates them. The story is a great second issue.
The artwork in this series is amazing. The details of feathers, the light and dark contrasts, and the overall character artwork is just beautiful. Nei Ruffino has a ton of art credits to her name, everything from work on Grimm Fairy Tales with Zenescope to work on Flashpoint and Final Crisis for DC Comics. As creator of this amazing new series, she has made something awesome. This is the first series that Ruffino has handled all of the art credits on, and I will say that her talents speak for themselves. Great job on this.
Raven Gregory writes this comic. As I read through it, and watched the flow of images so tightly tie the story together, I could not help but think about how like poetry the story is. Everything about this story is the ebb and flow of emotions, wonder, freedom, fear, loneliness, hope, and, finally, the salvation of finding that other half, the sunbird to your crow. A really great story.
Check out Elysium Treasures to get your hands on these great books, as well as some special sketch covers and several other great books.
My Rating: 5/5
wow. this looks pretty unique. might have to give it a try.