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Lucid
Foreward by Alan Ball Lucid is an action-packed, pop-fantasy series that draws inspiration from the spy genre, Arthurian legend, and 21st-century folklore! Dark forces are conspiring to prevent humankind from reaching its true potential. Thankfully, as newly appointed "Protector of the Realm," Agent Matthew Dee uses his skills as a covert spy and Combat Mage to ensure America's freedom from the grip of evil.
112 pages, Hardcover
First published May 10, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
March 26, 2012
The volume possesses a really intriguing premise - magic is real and techno-occultism is on the rise and being utilized by major governments - with well-done and interesting artwork but the storyline itself feels weak. Despite the cool and well-fashioned premise and mechanics of this world's magic, the book's action is not very interesting or enticing. This blandness holds true for the protagonists and the stock situations they find themselves in. There are a lot of neat elements floating around - the King Arthur legend, Illuminati and conspiracy cabals, JFK assassination, court magician John Dee, sigil magic, and a great spy flavor - but the story and its events never coalesce and feel as fresh, fun, or urgent as they could. The graphic novel is the first in a series, so I'm hoping that this is merely a "first volume case" of an initial installment laying down groundwork and basic premise/backstory for better volumes to come.
December 29, 2016
1.5 stars—D+ for effort
Ironically named, apparently. Clunky would be more apt. One of the reviews on the dust jacket says that the story doesn't get "too bogged down by the technicalities of spell-casting and heady mysticism." I'll say. It gets bogged down by other things, and it throws any and all technicalities into the shredder. Instead of wands the mages use magic gloves, like some weird Michael Jackson homage. Sigils used throughout in lieu of dialogue are not explained until the end of the book, and then only in a cursory fashion, one that is far from comprehensive; here "comprehensive" means explaining the sigils that appear in the story at the very least. And the only usages of "heady mysticism" are in dropping names like Dee, Parsons, and Gygax (?!). What got this book thrown across the room last night was when one of the characters (I'm being generous in calling her that, btw) referred to the teachings of her school of magic as "tenements" instead of "tenets." I had to re-read it multiple times to confirm that it was not a trick of the light, and that it said exactly what I thought it said. That that egregious error made it past the author's eyeballs, presumably a proofreader's eyeballs, and the artist's eyeballs too (though in her defense, I presume English is not her first language, so she gets a pass) was too much to bear. I finished it, though, damn me, I finished it.
Ironically named, apparently. Clunky would be more apt. One of the reviews on the dust jacket says that the story doesn't get "too bogged down by the technicalities of spell-casting and heady mysticism." I'll say. It gets bogged down by other things, and it throws any and all technicalities into the shredder. Instead of wands the mages use magic gloves, like some weird Michael Jackson homage. Sigils used throughout in lieu of dialogue are not explained until the end of the book, and then only in a cursory fashion, one that is far from comprehensive; here "comprehensive" means explaining the sigils that appear in the story at the very least. And the only usages of "heady mysticism" are in dropping names like Dee, Parsons, and Gygax (?!). What got this book thrown across the room last night was when one of the characters (I'm being generous in calling her that, btw) referred to the teachings of her school of magic as "tenements" instead of "tenets." I had to re-read it multiple times to confirm that it was not a trick of the light, and that it said exactly what I thought it said. That that egregious error made it past the author's eyeballs, presumably a proofreader's eyeballs, and the artist's eyeballs too (though in her defense, I presume English is not her first language, so she gets a pass) was too much to bear. I finished it, though, damn me, I finished it.
July 16, 2015
The main character's introduction into this realistically magical world hit the right note, with it’s action heavy panels and witty dialogue. Suddenly it started to decline, somewhere. The rest of the story does not hold up to the interesting premise and even the art makes the entirety of it feel amateurish. Characters look good with front-facing portraits but side-views and movement look odd and helps stifle the already stiff story.
The dust jacket features a review that I have to disagree with. It says, “McMillian does a good job of keeping the dialogue snappy… and lends a down-to-earth humanity that keeps the story from getting too bogged-down in the technicalities of spell-casting and heady mysticism.” The dialogue tends to lean on the cheesy side, rather than snappy, and is carried through the comic as paragraph-long explanations squeezed into dialogue bubbles. The magical world was introduced well, but rather than allowing readers to accept it, pages and pages are used up trying to explain what could have been assumed. It also introduces multiple concepts, characters, villains that seem too disconnected to everything.
It didn't help that my copy was misprinted. Two chapters have been printed twice and half of the last chapter has been cut. The problem is, I didn’t notice. Everything was winded or confusing prior to the misprinted chapter and once reading through the duplicate chapter it didn’t help or hurt the humdrum of it all.
Unfortunately I don’t care about this series very much to try and get a properly printed copy. Hopefully the rest of the series improves, but I don’t intend to find out.
TLDR; Less than mediocre comic, shoving heavy amounts of disjointed dialogue and explanation into more than half of a panel, and an art style that is more stiff than stylized and only slightly better than what's seen in Chris Hart's How to Draw Manga books.
The dust jacket features a review that I have to disagree with. It says, “McMillian does a good job of keeping the dialogue snappy… and lends a down-to-earth humanity that keeps the story from getting too bogged-down in the technicalities of spell-casting and heady mysticism.” The dialogue tends to lean on the cheesy side, rather than snappy, and is carried through the comic as paragraph-long explanations squeezed into dialogue bubbles. The magical world was introduced well, but rather than allowing readers to accept it, pages and pages are used up trying to explain what could have been assumed. It also introduces multiple concepts, characters, villains that seem too disconnected to everything.
It didn't help that my copy was misprinted. Two chapters have been printed twice and half of the last chapter has been cut. The problem is, I didn’t notice. Everything was winded or confusing prior to the misprinted chapter and once reading through the duplicate chapter it didn’t help or hurt the humdrum of it all.
Unfortunately I don’t care about this series very much to try and get a properly printed copy. Hopefully the rest of the series improves, but I don’t intend to find out.
TLDR; Less than mediocre comic, shoving heavy amounts of disjointed dialogue and explanation into more than half of a panel, and an art style that is more stiff than stylized and only slightly better than what's seen in Chris Hart's How to Draw Manga books.
October 28, 2013
So okay, full disclosure alert here, and a lot of people already know this. The author of this comic, Michael McMillian? He kind of makes me go
I would look for his tweets even though I didn't have a twitter account and always found them incredibly funny. I knew that he wrote some of the TRUE BLOOD comics, so it really shouldn't have surprised me when I found out he'd written his own series. I had toyed with getting it, since I do love me some comic books, and when amazon.com sent me an email advertising how it was on sale I just saw it as fate. So I ordered it, and just recently finally read it.
The basic premise is that America isn't just protected by laws and people of the mortal world, but also the magical world. The story focuses on one of these magical agents named Matthew Dee, a Combat Mage and super spy who goes on missions and fights magic with magic. There is a new form of evil that is threatening to take over our dimension, and Dee is brought in to help fight it and hold it off. Seeing as Merlin himself had tried to vanquish this threat, one can imagine how difficult of a task this must be.
Overall, it was a pretty strong start to a series, with well written characters that I enjoyed. McMillian's characters were fun to read, and had snappy dialogue that made me laugh out loud. I'm a fan of fantasy to be sure, though not as much mages as I am of vampires, zombies, witches, etc, so this was kind of new for me. But a good new, I'd say. I look forward to seeing if this series continues.
I would look for his tweets even though I didn't have a twitter account and always found them incredibly funny. I knew that he wrote some of the TRUE BLOOD comics, so it really shouldn't have surprised me when I found out he'd written his own series. I had toyed with getting it, since I do love me some comic books, and when amazon.com sent me an email advertising how it was on sale I just saw it as fate. So I ordered it, and just recently finally read it.
The basic premise is that America isn't just protected by laws and people of the mortal world, but also the magical world. The story focuses on one of these magical agents named Matthew Dee, a Combat Mage and super spy who goes on missions and fights magic with magic. There is a new form of evil that is threatening to take over our dimension, and Dee is brought in to help fight it and hold it off. Seeing as Merlin himself had tried to vanquish this threat, one can imagine how difficult of a task this must be.
Overall, it was a pretty strong start to a series, with well written characters that I enjoyed. McMillian's characters were fun to read, and had snappy dialogue that made me laugh out loud. I'm a fan of fantasy to be sure, though not as much mages as I am of vampires, zombies, witches, etc, so this was kind of new for me. But a good new, I'd say. I look forward to seeing if this series continues.
April 30, 2012
Interesting premise: an uber-secret organization within the government that utilizes mages to protect the citizenry. A rogue entity known as the "Pendragon" evidently has the power to grant magic to the general population, presumably for nefarious purposes.
The premise mostly works, but there's not enough development to keep it rounded out. I don't ultimately feel like I connected with any of the characters and am not certain I will continue to follow the series. The liberal use of spells is interesting, but one must guess at what they actually do (as least until one gets to the bonus material where the "spells" are named, if not described), which makes for some puzzling action sequences. This is written by the actor who plays Rev. Steve Newlin on True Blood, so for a "celebrity" book, it's not too shabby. I'm not a huge fan of the artwork, but it seems to fit the tone of the story, so I'll give it pass.
The premise mostly works, but there's not enough development to keep it rounded out. I don't ultimately feel like I connected with any of the characters and am not certain I will continue to follow the series. The liberal use of spells is interesting, but one must guess at what they actually do (as least until one gets to the bonus material where the "spells" are named, if not described), which makes for some puzzling action sequences. This is written by the actor who plays Rev. Steve Newlin on True Blood, so for a "celebrity" book, it's not too shabby. I'm not a huge fan of the artwork, but it seems to fit the tone of the story, so I'll give it pass.
October 6, 2011
It's a bit of a kitchen sink story, involving the death of John Kennedy, the return of Camelot, the return of the Illuminati, and several other conflicting agendas. I frequently found myself engrossed in the story, but then put off a bit by some of the artwork. The writing was a 3 1/2 star effort, but the art only 2 1/2 stars. In a graphic novel, that is not a huge problem.
While it would be readable by teens, I think the main audience for this book would be adults, just because of the subject matter and the complexity.
The book even includes a "glossary" of the magic being thrown around during the story, which I thought was a cute touch.
While it would be readable by teens, I think the main audience for this book would be adults, just because of the subject matter and the complexity.
The book even includes a "glossary" of the magic being thrown around during the story, which I thought was a cute touch.
November 16, 2011
Michael McMillian steps away from True Blood and sets his sights on the comics world with Lucid. Attempting to tell the story of Matthew Dee, magic-wielder and protector to the President, McMillian finds himself jumping over necessary exposition into a topsy-turvy world of governmental black magic. In-between jabs at the Kennedy assassination, the Illuminati, alien-worshipping cults, magic bullets, and a subtle dig at Apple, this in most decidely not a reader-friendly volume. The abundance of flat characters and conspiracies do not benefit Anna Wieszczyk's manga-ish art style, leaving me less lucid than I had been upon beginning this book.
June 20, 2012
Graphic Novel. Matthew Dee is a combat mage in the British “Majestic Intelligence” division. Although the artwork is very good, the story is underwhelming- there is not enough back-story for Dee (a two page panel showing Dee not succeeding well at school, then a jump of 15 years to his new life as a mage) and none of the villains seemed to have reasons for being there; each chapter has a new conspiracy by some group that sounds vaguely folkloric (The Pendragon, the Daoine Sidhe) but there is very little reason given except that they are a menace. Perhaps later volumes will fill in the gaps…but the first volume was unsatisfying. The author is an actor in the series True Blood.
May 18, 2013
This story felt extremely disjointed to me, nothing more than a series of wise-cracking characters with shallow motivations and dark sides. When I flipped through the book at Achaia’s booth, the art and concept seemed interesting, but this is just one of those books that falls apart upon closer inspection. I don’t know if they’re planning on serializing this with more stories, but I probably won’t be back to check it out.
November 14, 2011
I love everything that they TRIED to do here.
And that is why this gets 4 stars.
The art looked like good anime art, and was gorgeous, and it was actually done by a british chick. :)
It got kinda confusing at the climax,
though I was not sure if that was my fault or not,
so,
for having such cool intentions this book gets 4 stars.
And that is why this gets 4 stars.
The art looked like good anime art, and was gorgeous, and it was actually done by a british chick. :)
It got kinda confusing at the climax,
though I was not sure if that was my fault or not,
so,
for having such cool intentions this book gets 4 stars.
July 17, 2011
Full review on HorrorTalk: http://www.horrortalk.com/comic-revie...
September 7, 2011
A decent intro to a series. Matthew Dee is a fun, take-charge character and I like all the secret agent/magic mix that makes up this story. Given some time this could go someplace really special.
June 3, 2012
I really enjoyed the book and the concepts it presents. I hope McMillian does more of these!
May 1, 2014
Good story, but the artwork has moments of "Art school portfolio project by someone who can't decide whether to go 'standard comics' and 'super mega crazy anime style'
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews