Boy, I’m glad I gave this book a second chance.
The Book of Lost Souls is an ongoing series by JMS (Babylon 5) and Colleen Doran (A Distant Soil, Orbiter). Marvel’s publishing it through their Icon imprint of creator-owned books. The story centers around Jonathan, a young man who commits suicide a long time ago. His soul is recruited by The Two to help steer humanity’s Lost Souls. One of the Two, the Dark Man, tries to push Jonathan towards evil, but Jonathan, as all good protagonists should, resists, despite the consequences.
I first tried to read this book while waiting on a car repair. I got through the first chapter but was completely turned off by the introduction of Mystery, a talking cat who acts as Jonathan’s helper. The panel where we meet him quite frankly made me nauseous.
No, not really. This is the purplest prose I’ve seen this side of gothy MySpace sites and 70’s horror comics. For a cat? And there’s quite a few panels of this sort. I couldn’t read any more, and I put the book down for a few weeks.
I found myself on a bench outside the Toms River Library yesterday, a beautiful sunny September day at Bookfest. I decided to give the book a second chance, and started again at page one.
I was glad I did. This is a rare work, one that actually has something- a lot of somethings- to say. The prose is still a little overblown, but you can see an improvement over time as JMS grows more comfortable with Doran’s art.
Doran’s the star of the show here. Her inkwork’s scratchier than on some of her other projects, but it fits here in the world of shadows. More importantly, when we hit the sixth chapter and Mystery has to take the stage in a starring role, she pulls of a miracle. Her Mystery is a convincing actor with a full range of human emotions while still looking like a cat. Any other artist would have either made Mystery more cartoony or ignored the needs of the script. Not Doran. She uses Mystery’s eyes and ears to pull it off in a way only a cat owner could do. (I’d post the pages, but I’d spoil the story. You’ll just have to trust me on this.)
JMS and Doran are getting ready to put out another 6 issues of this series, and I’ll be looking forward to each issue.
The Book of Lost Souls:
Cats, dreamers, hitmen, all lost;
Found here in this tome.