Otherworld, Vol. 1

by Phil Jimenez, Andy Lanning (Illustrator)

Forcibly taken from Earth, a group of young people imbued with superpowers battle to determine the fate of Otherworld, an idyllic land of mythological beings at war with a technological nation-state.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fantasy

176 pages, Paperback

First published September 20, 2006

About the author

Philip Jiménez is an American comics artist and writer, known for his work as writer/artist on Wonder Woman from 2000 to 2003, as one of the five pencilers of the 2005–2006 miniseries Infinite Crisis, and his collaborations with writer Grant Morrison on New X-Men and The Invisibles.

Reviews

[The_Mad_Swede · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Phil Jimenez's work on Grant Morrison's The Invisibles and the concept of Otherworld appealed to me from the get go. And still, I am left disappointed.

It fails several times in terms of storytelling. More than once in this volume, I find myself lost as to the order of the sequences of images and captions/speech balloons with words; and I am something of a veteran comics reader, so I pity any newcomer to the medium who happens to pick this volume up.

Secondly, Jimenez manages to introduce a rather large cast of characters in a less than stellar way. For about half of the book, I had a difficult time keeping track of characters, the who's who of the story, as it were. To add to this, I managed to read the entire first chapter/issue thinking the voice in the captions belonged to one character, when it in the next chapter/issue is revealed to be a completely different one (and later one this narrator identity gets further complicated, but not really as a conscious, narrative strategy or point in any way).

And finally, Jimenez spends seven chapters/issues on a (less than elaborate, albeit extremely confusingly told) set up. Yes that's right, the full volume in its entirety is nothing more than a sort of prologue to a story not yet told.

When Otherworld was first marketed as a comicbook in 2005, I don't recall it being marketed as a miniseries in any way. This rather seemed to be retroactively applied (most likely in response to less than stellar sales, which seems a likely scenario) and the fact that there has been no further miniseries made, indicates that maybe there will never be any.

Now, if Jimenez continues, I might (might!) pick up another volume to see where the story actually lands... because, as stated, the concept is good. But I cannot in good conscious recommend anyone to waste their time on this volume, Jimenez beautiful art sadly not making up for the overly decompressed and thin yet confusing storytelling.

[Michelle Morrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A group of 20-somethings are transported to an alternate dimension where the forces of magic are locked in battle with the forces of technology. Transformed and separated, sides are chosen and all are forever changed.

The artwork was fantastical and trippy, I was reminded a lot of the art from Promethea. The story was hard to follow at times, though, the art got in the way at times, it was hard to pick out the separate characters, but I did like the scope and depth of the worlds.

[Sarah]

I agree with those who said that the story had potential but was hard to follow. I'm not surprised it got canned, since the mix of magic and technology was confusing.

[Artur Coelho · Rating 2 out of 5]

Otherworld remete-nos para uma história sobre a dualidade entre a mitologia e a ciência, aqui vista como uma guerra para onde são arrastados alguns desprevenidos humanos. Sem ser particularmente interessante, vale pela qualidade das ilustrações, que oscilam entre visões do fantástico e uma estética cyberpunk arrojada.

[Wesley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not great but not bad tale being an attempt to mix up high fantasy and techno sci-fi. Unfortunately the story consists of only seven issues and finishes without any conclusion and it does not look like it has been continued elsewhere.