Cicadian Rhythms – Comic Review
Pour yourself a tankard of scorpion juice and pull up a barstool because MADIUS COMICS IS BACK! Blasting out of the minds of writers Michael Sambrook and Rob Jones and the absurdly talented art tendrils of Gustavo Vargas is a brand new fantasy adventure about myths, dragons, fisticuffs and tales of derring-do. It’s Cicadian Rhythms!
If you feel the ground rumbling, she will be there. She is always there. She will protect us. Arm yourselves, form a huddle, and most of all, stay safe.
THEY ARE COMING!
This brand new 13 page one-shot will be released at the very brilliant THOUGHT BUBBLE convention on the 22nd of September for the ridiculously low price of just £3 (available online shortly afterwards).
Keep an eye on the Madius facebook and twitter pages to stay up to date with all the latest Madius happenings as the Madius elves are currently beavering away (as well as the Madius beavers who are elving away) on a brand new revamped website which should be launching soon. Details to follow!
So make sure to get yourselves down, up, east or west to THOUGHT BUBBLE and fill your reading hampers with Cicadian Rhythms!
It’s the only way to stay safe.
Cicadian Rhythms
Imagine my delight, if you will, when I sat down at my computer the other evening and a little message popped up on Twitter. It was a missive from the one and only (literally, is there another letterer out there at the moment cos this guy seems to be doing EVERYTHING?) Robin Jones. It contained a link to the latest offering from the Madius Comics crew, the nattily titled Cicadian Rhythms. No, that isn’t a repeated typo, but a clever play on words, referring to both natural cycles of organisms and…well, one particular organism.
Cicadian Rhythms is a medieval sword slinging romp…with a twist. It’s Madius, of course there’s a twist. And it comes at you fast, like, page 2 kinda fast. This is not your average armoured fantasy. Writers Sambrook and Jones do an excellent job of subverting expectations and then totally nailing what comes next. There are some snort-laugh-worthy lines as you’d expect from the men behind Profits of Doom, with “You look cuter in pewter” being my absolute stand out fave.
I had a chat with Robin and he did tell me that they wanted to make sure their hero, Gytha, wasn’t just a pair of armoured boobs, nor a “woman in a fridge” type. She is totally badass, but there’s obviously more to her than first glance. Let’s just say that line I really liked… she’s the one who says it. To another woman.
Enough about the words…
Art duties this time out fall into the talented hands of Gustavo Vargas. When I say talented, put it this way… I said I wanted to cosplay Gytha based off one concept drawing I saw MONTHS ago. Long before I realised just how awesome she was going to be. You’ve got to have some skills to work on a Madius book if you ask me, especially one as squishy as this.
I love the fact that even in black and white, Vargas manages to convey the small details that really draw you in. Case in point, the blush on Elisa’s cheeks on page 9. Or the adorably lop-sided face on Gytha’s dragon.
Yep, this comic has it all, icky gooey monsters, tentacles, queer rep, booze… And given the way this issue ends, I truly hope that Madius Comics decide to make this one a series, rather than just the one shot it is at present. It’s definitely worthy of the “Papercuts and Inkstains Presents” that appears above the title.
All images are used with permission from Madius Comics.
