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The Ludocrats #1-5
Ludocrats
The Ludocrats! The aristocrats of ludicrous! Defending reality from the encroaching forces of boredom while having a nice time. KIERON GILLEN (DIE, THE WICKED + THE DIVINE) and JIM ROSSIGNOL (Sir, You Are Being Hunted) write! JEFF STOKELY (The Spire) draws!TAMRA BONVILLAIN (Once & Future) colors! CLAYTON COWLES (Every excellent comic) letters! The universe screams in pleasure, writhing, finally satisfied, complete, joyous!
COLLECTS ISSUES #1-5 OF THE LUDOCRATS
COLLECTS ISSUES #1-5 OF THE LUDOCRATS
152 pages, Paperback
First published November 18, 2020
2 people are currently reading
71 people want to read
About the author
Kieron Gillen
1,479 books1,910 followersKieron Gillen is a comic book writer and former media journalist.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
November 13, 2020
Oh god, Ludocrats. What a book.
This is the kind of book that only a British writer can come up with, and it's no surprise that Kieron Gillen's (and Jim Rossignol's) name is on the front of this one. Ludocrats concerns itself with the Ludocracy, a group of aristocrats who exist only to be as utterly insane as possible (ludicrous, even). When their very way of life is threatened, they band together under the banner of one particular Ludocrat, as they try to ensure that the world is safe to be as mad as possible, because boring is the last thing anyone should aspire to be.
In five issues, this book will manage to make you laugh, roll your eyes, and throw the book across the room at how daft it can be, and that's entirely the point. It's fun, pure and undiluted, and poured into comic book form in a way that only Gillen can do.
Jeff Stokely's artwork is exactly the kind of nuts that it needs to be to keep up with Gillen and Rossignol's script; he manages to make even the most vulgar of jokes land perfectly, and there's a sequence in the final issue where the characters literally burst from the page that has to be seen to be believed.
Ludocrats is exactly the kind of book we need right now - it's irreverent, stupid, highly amusing, and far more intelligent than it has any right to be (yes, it can be both) all at once. I love it, and I'm sure anyone with eyes will too.
This is the kind of book that only a British writer can come up with, and it's no surprise that Kieron Gillen's (and Jim Rossignol's) name is on the front of this one. Ludocrats concerns itself with the Ludocracy, a group of aristocrats who exist only to be as utterly insane as possible (ludicrous, even). When their very way of life is threatened, they band together under the banner of one particular Ludocrat, as they try to ensure that the world is safe to be as mad as possible, because boring is the last thing anyone should aspire to be.
In five issues, this book will manage to make you laugh, roll your eyes, and throw the book across the room at how daft it can be, and that's entirely the point. It's fun, pure and undiluted, and poured into comic book form in a way that only Gillen can do.
Jeff Stokely's artwork is exactly the kind of nuts that it needs to be to keep up with Gillen and Rossignol's script; he manages to make even the most vulgar of jokes land perfectly, and there's a sequence in the final issue where the characters literally burst from the page that has to be seen to be believed.
Ludocrats is exactly the kind of book we need right now - it's irreverent, stupid, highly amusing, and far more intelligent than it has any right to be (yes, it can be both) all at once. I love it, and I'm sure anyone with eyes will too.
August 21, 2020
I won't be finishing the last issue of this because why even bother when it's been 4 issues of Kieron Gillen trying his best to be randomly funny and irreverent, propped up solely by likeable cartoony art and sex jokes. It's not even bad, it's just simply boring and that's worse than bad. The yawns spring eternal.
January 2, 2021
I expect this year's readings will improve from here.
I do like the art and colors.
I do like the art and colors.
Read
October 5, 2020A wilfully and openly self-indulgent project, essentially Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time filtered through the noughties internet, then realigned somewhat after everyone realised the downside of the noughties internet. Which was handy given when it eventually hit, after 13 years in gestation. As also the plot: this is a comic which, in so far as it's about anything beyond two friends topping each other's daftest ideas, is about the forces of ludicrousness – embodied by Baron Otto von Subertan and Professor Hades Zero-K – fighting a dastardly plot to make the world boring. Whose launch was delayed and momentum sapped by a pandemic, one of whose most widespread and long-lasting effects has been to make the world incredibly boring. Line after line feels painfully relevant – "The concept mills had been pumping inventors full of performance-enhancing toad serum for the past four seasons. The Ludocrats hoped that there would be some manner of lunatic apparatus to take advantage of. Perhaps there would have been in earlier days. Not now. Just flames, and the smell of ideas proving themselves entirely destructible, with all hope as kindling." That could almost be a future folk memory of the 2020 death of the creative industries, couldn't it, if only I believed there were enough of a future that folk memories would have chance to develop. But even beyond the basic problem of reading this in a world where boredom definitely won, there's that slight twist that here and now, the evil is ludicrous (though somehow incredibly boring at the same time), while the forces of good have become desperately earnest. For understandable reasons, to be sure, but it contributes further to the sense of a series which – much like the Amazon remake of Utopia, albeit in a far less troubling way – has had the misfortune to arrive at exactly the wrong moment. There's at least one nod to this tension in the backmatter, and in general you can tell attempts have been made by some very smart people to work around the problem – even if they do sometimes leave the haunting experience of reading a palimpsest and wondering what it would have looked like had it been published when first conceived, in a more casually scurrilous age. For me this was most pronounced in the second issue, which may seem an odd conclusion when that's the one about a heist from inside a gigantipede whose arse is in another dimension, but I still felt like I was picking up echoes of a more outrageous take that would have been hilarious back in the day, but would now feel horribly misjudged on top of ending the careers of all concerned. Bear in mind, though, that this is the review of someone who is prone to overthinking at the best of times, has been following the off-page saga of this project for a good long while, and is really not in the best of moods this decade. Approach it without those considerations and you'd quite likely have a whale of a time. Jeff Stokely's art brings the appropriate oddness, feeling manic but never forced; he's much more suited to a project like this than The Spire, which had the invention and oddness but was also trying to be a serious thriller about structural inequality. And nobody could doubt Gillen and Rossignol's commitment to coming up with general mad shit, creating a context where a line like "Today we fight the hellspawn of my loins" feels not only justified but necessary. Yes, there's also that line which I'm pretty sure has mixed up 'sire' and 'scion', but fuck it – if the spark of the joyously ludicrous yet burns a little brighter in you than it does in what's left of me, I suspect you'll have a ball. Hell, despite all my reservations, despite the fact that Gillen has in the interim done something very similar elsewhere, I still found myself cracking up at the audacity of the conclusion.
December 9, 2020
What happens when Gillen lets his silliest, most puerile indulgences and vertiginously polysyllabic vocabulary spiral out of control for 5 surprisingly horny issues, presumably with encouraging co-writing by his old game journo pal Rossignol? The Ludocrats!
I’ve enjoyed most everything I’ve read by Gillen before, but this is such a showcase of his worst impulses that I’m slightly concerned they’ll now stand out much worse in his better edited work I read in the future. When everything is maximally ludicrous and absurd all the time, it ironically takes on a flat tone where nothing really stands out anymore. Do you think hat-on-a-hat-on-a-hat names like Hyper-Regent Warstein Kralstein Hapensbagger-Frith are funny? What if Gillen comes up with 30 more like it and repeats them to you all in a row? (This is not a hypothetical.)
Stokely’s art gamely tries to portray everything and is interesting to look at more often than not, and the sheer volume of gags means there’s some creative delight to be found here. Overall though, this is just exhausting and way too incoherent to enjoy consistently.
I’ve enjoyed most everything I’ve read by Gillen before, but this is such a showcase of his worst impulses that I’m slightly concerned they’ll now stand out much worse in his better edited work I read in the future. When everything is maximally ludicrous and absurd all the time, it ironically takes on a flat tone where nothing really stands out anymore. Do you think hat-on-a-hat-on-a-hat names like Hyper-Regent Warstein Kralstein Hapensbagger-Frith are funny? What if Gillen comes up with 30 more like it and repeats them to you all in a row? (This is not a hypothetical.)
Stokely’s art gamely tries to portray everything and is interesting to look at more often than not, and the sheer volume of gags means there’s some creative delight to be found here. Overall though, this is just exhausting and way too incoherent to enjoy consistently.
October 4, 2020
A ribald look at the inbred upper classes, I assume, and how all they want to do is just what the heck they want, however stupid and destructive it might be. It's gaudy, it's garish, it's very one-note (it was cranked up to eleven before the audience were in the building, for sure) – but it does possibly have something to say about the absurdity of existence. It just wasn't my thing, all told – although I was happy enough I'd sat it out and proved for myself there was an actual plot to it all; from the early pages it just seemed to be a sort of hyperbolic cut-up fantasy writing piss-take, going nowhere. The fact it proved me wrong might earn it three stars, but no more from me.
November 29, 2020
And, no....
I started reading this and very quickly thought that someone had found a Stephen DeStefano story from the Dark Horse Instant Piano anthology and decided to make a limited series out of it. The artwork is somewhat similar, and the Dadaesque storytelling with tons of humor fits the DeStefano brand. And I went "Cool! I like weird absurd comic books with zany artwork in strange complex environments!"
But if you're going to tell a story in a five issue limited series, you need plot and motivation. The Ludocrats does that, but those needs work against the surrealist aesthetic. All of a sudden you are moving from all the insanity of the Ludocratic culture (where a sentient bag of wheat is attending a wedding where the groom ends up decapitated) to backstory and plot points. The creative team tries to deal with the lack of congruence by going meta at times, and I felt that just confused the proceedings even more.
Still, it was a three star read for most of the issues. Quite funny, if a bit tiresome with the concept (and perhaps better read over time in pamphlet form than collected in GN form). But the last issue tries to have its cake and eat it too and fails miserably.
I started reading this and very quickly thought that someone had found a Stephen DeStefano story from the Dark Horse Instant Piano anthology and decided to make a limited series out of it. The artwork is somewhat similar, and the Dadaesque storytelling with tons of humor fits the DeStefano brand. And I went "Cool! I like weird absurd comic books with zany artwork in strange complex environments!"
But if you're going to tell a story in a five issue limited series, you need plot and motivation. The Ludocrats does that, but those needs work against the surrealist aesthetic. All of a sudden you are moving from all the insanity of the Ludocratic culture (where a sentient bag of wheat is attending a wedding where the groom ends up decapitated) to backstory and plot points. The creative team tries to deal with the lack of congruence by going meta at times, and I felt that just confused the proceedings even more.
Still, it was a three star read for most of the issues. Quite funny, if a bit tiresome with the concept (and perhaps better read over time in pamphlet form than collected in GN form). But the last issue tries to have its cake and eat it too and fails miserably.
November 21, 2020
I'm not sure how to review this book because I'm not sure Kieron Gillen knew how to write this book. While the first issue sets up an interesting but offbeat world where being boring is the ultimate crime, the rest of the series just spins its weird wheels. None of the characters behavior is consistent because They're All Weird All The Time!
The focus on irreverency without an interesting plot made this book, well, boring. The book, itself, commits the crime it's most afraid of. I found myself skipping pages near the end because I just wanted to be done with it.
If you're looking for something that's commited to being weird rather than telling an interesting story, this is definitely for you. The art is great, and the original concept is fun, it's just that none of the jokes landed for me, and I couldn't be bothered to care about character betrayals because none of the characters had any real motivations except for making the plot weird.
The focus on irreverency without an interesting plot made this book, well, boring. The book, itself, commits the crime it's most afraid of. I found myself skipping pages near the end because I just wanted to be done with it.
If you're looking for something that's commited to being weird rather than telling an interesting story, this is definitely for you. The art is great, and the original concept is fun, it's just that none of the jokes landed for me, and I couldn't be bothered to care about character betrayals because none of the characters had any real motivations except for making the plot weird.
October 24, 2020
I keep trying Kieron Gillen because every single comic reader I know tells me he is amazing. I also keep finding his stories full of incredibly interesting ideas that get bogged down by extreme wordiness and attempts at cramming way too much into not enough pages.
As I said, there are several interesting elements both storywise and artwise that I found delightful if not brilliant, however, it's too madcap crazy for my tastes.
That said, the art is a delight and I did laugh out loud a couple of times, so I'm perfectly willing to accept that it has its good points and leave it in the middle ground of ratings.
As I said, there are several interesting elements both storywise and artwise that I found delightful if not brilliant, however, it's too madcap crazy for my tastes.
That said, the art is a delight and I did laugh out loud a couple of times, so I'm perfectly willing to accept that it has its good points and leave it in the middle ground of ratings.
November 6, 2022
Com imagens em Rascunhos
É oficial. Os livros de Gillen deixam-me um sabor agridoce. Visualmente divertido, depois da boa experiência com Once & Future, resolvi-me a experimentar esta nova série. Tem momentos geniais. Mas não só.
A história
O título advém da palavra Ludicrious, que em português significará ridículo ou absurdo, e pretende apresentar os aristocratas do absurdo, personalidades ficcionais (e com toques mitológicos ou fantásticos) que se defendem do tédio das mais ridículas formas – demandas idiotas, hábitos disparatados, conversas tolas e acções insensatas (ou até, passíveis de proporcionar vergonha a todos os envolvidos).
A história centra-se num Ludocrata em especial, uma personagem pouco inteligente mas muito activa e impulsiva! As piores ideias podem advir deste Ludocrata! Felizmente, no seu grupo de amigos (ou conhecidos, ou parceiros) encontra-se uma cientista que irá ajudar a viabilizar os planos mais inacreditáveis.
Crítica
A ideia por detrás de Ludocrats é engraçada, cruzando elementos mitológicos com fantásticos, enquanto explora, com toda a força as possibilidades da premissa. A utilização de elementos mitológicos não é nova, sendo passível de ser observada ao longo das várias séries de Guillen. Aliás, diria que este é um traço distintivo das suas narrativas, reformulando poderes e histórias épicas e conferindo-lhes uma aura moderna e, até, tecnológica.
Este aspecto é, sobretudo, o que me tem atraído sucessivamenta para os livros da autora, mesmo quando séries anteriores falham em se tornar leituras favoritas. The Complete Phonogram possuía, também, uma premissa original mas acaba por ter uma série de personagens que não me cativaram. Já em The Wicked + The Divine, achei que as personagens se pareciam demasiado a estrelas pop num caminho destrutivo. O correcto equilíbrio da história terá sido conseguido para mim em Once & Future, onde se usam as lendas arturianas para criar uma história contemporânea de caçador de monstros que entreçalaça histórias e personagens modernas. O que terá, a meu ver, corrido melhor nesta? Trata-se de uma narrativa muito movimentada que consegue centrar-se num número mais limitado de personagens, nas quais investe para as caracterizar.
Bem, mas voltemos a The Ludocrats. Sim, a ideia parece enquadrar-se no meu género, com elementos absurdos e mitológicos. Afinal o que não me cativou? O exagero e a verborreia. O livro tem momentos brutais que irão deliciar qualquer leitor que goste do absurdo e dos jogos de palavras e de ideias. Mas algumas das boas ideias são exploradas ao excesso, sendo que a narrativa tem momentos de pausa onde apresenta cartas e artigos de jornais que explicam alguns detalhes culturais. Esta componente, a da explicação, torna-se cansativa afastando-se do clássico conselho “Show, don’t tell”.
A par com estes artigos semi explicativos, a história apresenta, em determinados momentos, longos discursos explicativos que recordam as verborreias daquelas pessoas que gostam de se ouvir durante demasiado tempo. Estes longos discursos travam a acção e diminuem a velocidade narrativa. No meu caso, diminuíram o interesse do que poderia ter sido uma leitura mais interessante e quebraram o propósito lúdico com que peguei no livro.
Mas, como disse, a maioria do livro é engraçado. Retirando estes discursos abusivos, a história apresenta ideias geniais e episódios mirabolantes, situações absurdas e ridículas, centrando-se numa personagem impulsiva e pouco sensata que é dada às mais variadas e divertidas parvoices. Os desenhos ajudam a compor o absurdo, com cores berrantes que recordam o I Hate Fairyland, e desenhos exagerados com figuras caricaturescas.
Conclusão
Esta é daquelas leituras que poderia, a meu ver, ter-se tornado excepcional, se não tentasse levar-se tanto a sério nalguns momentos. É, ainda assim, aconselhável a quem queira ler algo com excelentes momentos de absurdo!
É oficial. Os livros de Gillen deixam-me um sabor agridoce. Visualmente divertido, depois da boa experiência com Once & Future, resolvi-me a experimentar esta nova série. Tem momentos geniais. Mas não só.
A história
O título advém da palavra Ludicrious, que em português significará ridículo ou absurdo, e pretende apresentar os aristocratas do absurdo, personalidades ficcionais (e com toques mitológicos ou fantásticos) que se defendem do tédio das mais ridículas formas – demandas idiotas, hábitos disparatados, conversas tolas e acções insensatas (ou até, passíveis de proporcionar vergonha a todos os envolvidos).
A história centra-se num Ludocrata em especial, uma personagem pouco inteligente mas muito activa e impulsiva! As piores ideias podem advir deste Ludocrata! Felizmente, no seu grupo de amigos (ou conhecidos, ou parceiros) encontra-se uma cientista que irá ajudar a viabilizar os planos mais inacreditáveis.
Crítica
A ideia por detrás de Ludocrats é engraçada, cruzando elementos mitológicos com fantásticos, enquanto explora, com toda a força as possibilidades da premissa. A utilização de elementos mitológicos não é nova, sendo passível de ser observada ao longo das várias séries de Guillen. Aliás, diria que este é um traço distintivo das suas narrativas, reformulando poderes e histórias épicas e conferindo-lhes uma aura moderna e, até, tecnológica.
Este aspecto é, sobretudo, o que me tem atraído sucessivamenta para os livros da autora, mesmo quando séries anteriores falham em se tornar leituras favoritas. The Complete Phonogram possuía, também, uma premissa original mas acaba por ter uma série de personagens que não me cativaram. Já em The Wicked + The Divine, achei que as personagens se pareciam demasiado a estrelas pop num caminho destrutivo. O correcto equilíbrio da história terá sido conseguido para mim em Once & Future, onde se usam as lendas arturianas para criar uma história contemporânea de caçador de monstros que entreçalaça histórias e personagens modernas. O que terá, a meu ver, corrido melhor nesta? Trata-se de uma narrativa muito movimentada que consegue centrar-se num número mais limitado de personagens, nas quais investe para as caracterizar.
Bem, mas voltemos a The Ludocrats. Sim, a ideia parece enquadrar-se no meu género, com elementos absurdos e mitológicos. Afinal o que não me cativou? O exagero e a verborreia. O livro tem momentos brutais que irão deliciar qualquer leitor que goste do absurdo e dos jogos de palavras e de ideias. Mas algumas das boas ideias são exploradas ao excesso, sendo que a narrativa tem momentos de pausa onde apresenta cartas e artigos de jornais que explicam alguns detalhes culturais. Esta componente, a da explicação, torna-se cansativa afastando-se do clássico conselho “Show, don’t tell”.
A par com estes artigos semi explicativos, a história apresenta, em determinados momentos, longos discursos explicativos que recordam as verborreias daquelas pessoas que gostam de se ouvir durante demasiado tempo. Estes longos discursos travam a acção e diminuem a velocidade narrativa. No meu caso, diminuíram o interesse do que poderia ter sido uma leitura mais interessante e quebraram o propósito lúdico com que peguei no livro.
Mas, como disse, a maioria do livro é engraçado. Retirando estes discursos abusivos, a história apresenta ideias geniais e episódios mirabolantes, situações absurdas e ridículas, centrando-se numa personagem impulsiva e pouco sensata que é dada às mais variadas e divertidas parvoices. Os desenhos ajudam a compor o absurdo, com cores berrantes que recordam o I Hate Fairyland, e desenhos exagerados com figuras caricaturescas.
Conclusão
Esta é daquelas leituras que poderia, a meu ver, ter-se tornado excepcional, se não tentasse levar-se tanto a sério nalguns momentos. É, ainda assim, aconselhável a quem queira ler algo com excelentes momentos de absurdo!
February 8, 2021
Não consegui ler além do número dois.
February 6, 2021
No lo pude terminar, se me hizo intragable la historia. El 2 solo por los buenos dibujos. Al menos este tipo de historias de Gillen no son de mi gusto.
January 31, 2021
Well I hated that. I get they were trying to be clever but just using big words and all of the (somehow boring) random doesn’t make you clever.
December 14, 2020
This is what I imagine an acid trip written down would be like.
My favorite character was the sentient flour sack.
My favorite character was the sentient flour sack.
December 26, 2020
There are passion / side projects that are truly wonderful. This isn't one of them. There were some wonderful puns and sight gags. But I would advise not spending your money on this one as I did.
October 15, 2020
I received a copy of The Ludocrats in exchange for a fair and honest review.
The Ludocrats has got to be one of the most absurd series I've read in quite some time – and I mean that in the best way possible. Created by Kieron Gillen, Jim Rossignol, Jeff Stokely, Tamra Bonvillain, and Clayton Cowles, this series is every bit as insane, silly, and quirky as that cover might imply.
In a world where normal is boring, and ludicrous is normal, there are The Ludocrats. They fight boredom, making it an arrest-worthy offense. This is the world that Otto lives and loves in, and that alone leaves enough room for chaos and mayhem galore.
I'm honestly not even entirely sure where to start this review. I feel like saying The Ludocrats is the most insane thing I've ever read is actually a bit...tame in comparison to what I read here. It's berserk but in a highly entertaining manner.
Frankly, I was shocked by how much I enjoyed this series. Perhaps it was simply because it was so much fun to see this creative team let loose and create something truly unique (one cannot argue that The Ludocrats is anything else).
Kieron Gillen and Jim Rossignol are arguably better known for some of their other (and more serious) series (such as The Wicked + The Divine, Once & Future, Sir, You Are Being Hunted). Yet I think this series will pop up in my mind from now on. As a huge fan of some of those series, I was pretty surprised to see the content within these pages, but I think that surprise just made it all the better.
Tamra Bonvillain's colors really brought the whole world (and humor) into focus. The colors are well...blindingly bright, but in this world, that's a good thing. Likewise, Jeff Stokely's artwork really let the characters run amok in this world, Otto in particular (seriously, if you don't want to see too much of that man, don't look too closely at some of the pages). And of course, Clayton Cowles did a freaking fantastic job with the lettering, but I'm not surprised by that.
I think what I enjoyed the most about this series is that it was quite literally, unpredictable. It at times made no sense, but that in itself made sense. If that makes sense. See! Ludocrats is designed to make everyone a bit crazy, all while letting loose and having fun.
Check out more of my reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks
The Ludocrats has got to be one of the most absurd series I've read in quite some time – and I mean that in the best way possible. Created by Kieron Gillen, Jim Rossignol, Jeff Stokely, Tamra Bonvillain, and Clayton Cowles, this series is every bit as insane, silly, and quirky as that cover might imply.
In a world where normal is boring, and ludicrous is normal, there are The Ludocrats. They fight boredom, making it an arrest-worthy offense. This is the world that Otto lives and loves in, and that alone leaves enough room for chaos and mayhem galore.
I'm honestly not even entirely sure where to start this review. I feel like saying The Ludocrats is the most insane thing I've ever read is actually a bit...tame in comparison to what I read here. It's berserk but in a highly entertaining manner.
Frankly, I was shocked by how much I enjoyed this series. Perhaps it was simply because it was so much fun to see this creative team let loose and create something truly unique (one cannot argue that The Ludocrats is anything else).
Kieron Gillen and Jim Rossignol are arguably better known for some of their other (and more serious) series (such as The Wicked + The Divine, Once & Future, Sir, You Are Being Hunted). Yet I think this series will pop up in my mind from now on. As a huge fan of some of those series, I was pretty surprised to see the content within these pages, but I think that surprise just made it all the better.
Tamra Bonvillain's colors really brought the whole world (and humor) into focus. The colors are well...blindingly bright, but in this world, that's a good thing. Likewise, Jeff Stokely's artwork really let the characters run amok in this world, Otto in particular (seriously, if you don't want to see too much of that man, don't look too closely at some of the pages). And of course, Clayton Cowles did a freaking fantastic job with the lettering, but I'm not surprised by that.
I think what I enjoyed the most about this series is that it was quite literally, unpredictable. It at times made no sense, but that in itself made sense. If that makes sense. See! Ludocrats is designed to make everyone a bit crazy, all while letting loose and having fun.
Check out more of my reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks
November 23, 2020
*I received this book as an eARC from Image Comics via Edelweiss. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*
This comic is out there. The most basic premise is a group of aristocrats who are valued for their ridiculousness, I think. The humor is all over the place, but I think that's the point. I understand what the creators are trying to do with this comic, but it is just not my thing. I couldn't really focus on the story. My interest didn't hold. This is an adult book; there is nudity. I give this graphic novel a 2/5. The art is colorful and lively, but the story is confusing and random (not in a good way).
This comic is out there. The most basic premise is a group of aristocrats who are valued for their ridiculousness, I think. The humor is all over the place, but I think that's the point. I understand what the creators are trying to do with this comic, but it is just not my thing. I couldn't really focus on the story. My interest didn't hold. This is an adult book; there is nudity. I give this graphic novel a 2/5. The art is colorful and lively, but the story is confusing and random (not in a good way).
June 22, 2024
This is very silly, and unfortunately it is not very funny. The ending appears to be an attack on self-consciously serious, black & white autobiographical comics, which is a weird flex for the creators, who are elsewhere quite supportive of that kind of stuff. Nextwave has a similar tone, and does the job better in my view – punching upwards and making a mess in Marvel’s own backyard rather than downwards at what is quite a niche genre of comics. Also, and most importantly, Nextwave was actually funny.
July 30, 2021
Stop that right now, it's just silly.
Take the madness of European aristocracy, crank it to 11, mix in a healthy dose of surrealism and a few structural plot holes for seasoning. This clearly isn't for everyone, but if you enjoy surreal comedy like Monty Portion you'll probably like this too.
The art and colours are fantastic and the topography and design in the back matter are lovely. It's an incredibly well crafted series even if the content is, well, ludicrous.
Take the madness of European aristocracy, crank it to 11, mix in a healthy dose of surrealism and a few structural plot holes for seasoning. This clearly isn't for everyone, but if you enjoy surreal comedy like Monty Portion you'll probably like this too.
The art and colours are fantastic and the topography and design in the back matter are lovely. It's an incredibly well crafted series even if the content is, well, ludicrous.
January 5, 2021
3.5 stars. Art is fun. Story is ridiculous. 💖 all the women. One of my favorite parts comes in the last 5 pages of the last issue. Really makes you realize what boring is to those Ludocrats. There is a wee bit of nudity if that’s something that concerns you.
March 28, 2021
I have no idea what to say. Was I entertained? Yes. If there was a second series would I read it? Probably. Would I recommend this to anyone else as an entry into any of the creators' work? Definitely not.
April 9, 2021
It was boring unfortunately.
The first issue was charming and imaginative enough to be enjoyable, but the longer it went on without any coherence the less I cared about what happened.
It's less "abstract and symbolic" and more "meaningless and empty".
But the art and the ideas are lovely.
The first issue was charming and imaginative enough to be enjoyable, but the longer it went on without any coherence the less I cared about what happened.
It's less "abstract and symbolic" and more "meaningless and empty".
But the art and the ideas are lovely.
June 20, 2021
Where to start? This book is the most insane and brilliant comic I remember reading. It has a dash of mature jokes and one of the best plot twists I remember reading. Absolutely recomend it for Kieron Gillen fans. Also the images are so full of colors it appeals to all the senses.
June 12, 2025
Gillen's attempt at an I Hate Fairyland type quirky adult story. I get why this didn't land for most people but I think it's fun ! It's heavy on the puns, wild and unexpected, and the art is gorgeous ! Definitely not his best work tho, but it's overhated imo
December 12, 2020
fun. cool colors.
October 6, 2021
Abandoned after the first issue. Some of the character design is really cool but this feels like a creative writing exercise that never got polished up
January 15, 2022
They tried so hard to be absurdist they lost their audience. I was bored the entire time. It was terrible and I basically skimmed the end. Cute art though.
January 29, 2023
Meh. Not even funny, alas.
June 29, 2025
i don't really know what I just consumed but it was bright, shiny, violent ridiculousness, and I loved it.
have been giggling madly for no reason for days. an infections of nonsense?
have been giggling madly for no reason for days. an infections of nonsense?
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