Titan Mouse of Might Totally Biased Comic book review and thoughts on the new Campaign.

 

That's right, it is time for another TOTALLY BIASED comic book review, and today we tackle Gary Shipman's beautifully and wonderfully made comic book TITAN: MOUSE of MIGHT on the first day of its second campaign to raise funds for the sequel. 

It's true, the blog is back and in full swing after having to take a back seat while I was doing daily pages for my Learning how to draw webcomic: WOW POW and BAM! Hopefully now that I finally have that project finished I can get back to daily blog content again. So with that said- On with the review!

Spoiler alert: It's a darn good comic book over all.

Gary Shipman was another indie creator I did not know anything about other than a couple of appearances on Mike Miller's Drawn and Quartered, and I had not backed his campaign for the first  Titan Mouse of Might on Indiegogo until Edwin Boyette endorsed the book after enjoying some preview artwork. I backed the book then on his opinion and I am very glad I did because I soon realized I had found another great creator I could happily enjoy. 

Since this was a new creator to me (at the time) I just backed the vanilla campaign at 30$ and got a hard cover book with a bunch of free extras. The book arrived promptly and on time, and unlike some campaigns which were much bigger and more successful than Titan 'the Mouse that Could' ended up being, I got more than I paid for and was very happy over all.

Titan Mouse of might raised apx. 32,529$ from 247 individual backers on its original IndiGoGo campaign.

Gary Shipman is an incredibly friendly and drama-free, christian creator who is a pleasure to watch draw live and seems to go out of his way to treat his fans and customers with respect and great costumer service. During his campaign's fulfillment I was watching one of his live streams and randomly asked if Titan was finished and had been shipped yet. I had not been following him too closely before that and honestly didn't know if the book was finished yet. He was very nice about my ignorant question and even went so far as to ask for my backer number so he could check my book's status. When doing so he confirmed that mine had yet to ship but then went out of his way to send me the book the next day. I thought this was very nice of him to do, especially since he didn't know me from Adam because I think that was the first time I had ever watched his stream, and I was very pleased when my copy of the book showed up just a few days later.

The finished product was an over sized, signed hardcover book with dynamic black and white art on thin newsprint and came with a wide verity of high quality extras. The extras included four HIGH QUALITY double sided bookmarks, two signed large postcards with detailed artwork on them, and two awesome and high quality, double sided metal cards highlighting two of the main characters that were very nice.

The signatures on the book (by the creator and artist Gary and his wife the editor) and the signatures on the postcard extras all came free even though I just backed the lowest tier of the campaign. Looking at these extras, and knowing the artwork would be top notch from the previews and from watching Gary draw live on his YouTube channel made me instantly decide to back his second campaign when I would get the chance. And that was all before I had a chance to read the book its self.

First the art...

The strongest aspect of Titan Mouse of Might is the amazing artwork by Gary Shipman. He is definitely one of the greatest artists you will find selling a product in crowd funded comics today, and it goes without saying, that he is also head and shoulders above most of the artists that work for what passes as the main stream comic book companies today as well. He is a master artist and his work is stunning.

The art is presented on thin newsprint and is in black and white. The lack of color and the use of the newsprint looks to be an intentional choice to highlight the feel of the character and its inspirations and to compliment the style of Gary's artwork. I have went back and fourth in my mind many times trying to decide if I think Gary's apparent choice of Newsprint for the book was for the best or not but I can totally see his logic in doing so.

When the reader first opens the book they are instantly transported (if they are old enough to remember the experience) to comic books and pulp books and Newspaper comic strips of the past by the look and the feel of the book. Nostalgia hits them with a tidal wave and one can instantly see what Gary was going for with his choice of the format, but even after feeling this for myself and understanding it, I still can't help but speculate that Gary might have been wiser to go with a more modern paper stock choice which would have displayed his beautiful art in an even better presentation. I cannot help but consider that he would have benefited to trade in that nostalgic feeling for paper that would have better displayed his incredibly dynamic and detailed artwork. Again this is only speculation on my part, of which even I am not one hundred percent I agree with myself, and could be an opinion that could vary greatly between the individual reader and their personal tastes. The newsprint also creates a false first impression that the book's length is shorter than its actual apx. 64 pages of story because of its thinness but one could see that as a plus or minus. 

My conclusion that he might have benefited more from a different paper stock comes from my appreciation of his art and from watching him draw it live on many different streams on YouTube and also from seeing that artwork presented with high quality images on the internet. The artwork in the printed book is beautiful but because of the newsprint I think it loses some of its original grandeur from the actual originals. That said, it is still INCREDIBLE and still some of the best looking art I have seen in a crowd funded book to date.

Gary creates an identifiable and interesting looking character in Titan that is instantly understood in character and design by the reader. He is drawn in dynamic poses and with style on every page he appears on and should be enjoyed by any average, comic book fan. Titan is the type of property that should have an excellent chance to become a classic and be quite successfully even in the mainstream if the chance ever arises. 

Titan is an excellent character and makes for a great comic book overall but it is still not without its faults. Let us get into those slight issues now by talking about how the character and the story is presented in Titan Mouse of Might!

As I have stated before Gary is an INCREDIBLE artist but his writing and character development falls behind his pen for the most part. The writing isn't terrible or unreadable, it is just uneven and confusing at times. Gary has all of the character traits, background and plot points he needs to tell an interesting and rememberable story but (in my opinion) he does not construct them in the most efficient way and does not present the story and the excellent character of Titan the Mouse in the most structured way to do the character justice. Especially for an origin story...

Evidently Gary has an older and well received collection of stories called Pakkins' Land that I have yet had the pleasure to read as of this review. The character of Titan is inspired from these tales of a fantasy world full of speaking animals and his book is tied to that world in a way that is not elegantly explained in the story. At least not as far as Titan himself is concerned. When first reading the book I was not sure if it was the character's first appearance because of the way the book was written. I had to ask the author (in a chat on his YouTube channel) later if he had appeared before in Pakkins' Land or not and only found out then that he had not. I was confused by this because if Titan Mouse of Might was his first appearance his origin was, in my opinion, not properly or thoroughly (or at least thematically or appropriately) explained. What hints and revelations to his history that were in the book were too vague and leaves the first time reader imagining they are missing character developments from some prior appearance that has never happened. I am not saying that a writer HAS to tell a complete origin story in the first issue (or even ever if they choose to do so) but I do believe a good writer needs to present a new character in a way that better explains what the character's motivations are and in a way that does not confuse the reader if this character has previous comic book backstories already or not.

 I do not mean to imply that character backstory is not included in Titan Mouse of Might, and that there are not interesting story tie-ins of his origin and his relation to the fantasy world of Pakkins' Land because those story aspects are included, I am only communicating my opinion that those story elements are poorly and confusingly implemented into this first appearance and were implemented in a way that hurt the over all flow of the story and the feel and impression of the book as a whole. In a book such as Titan Mouse of Might the first story would have benefited a bit more from a more traditional and straight forward origin story. That said, nitpicks aside, I still liked and enjoyed the story for the most part in Titan and it left me interested in seeing more and even in checking out Gary's previous work on Pakkins' Land which I plan on picking up in the future. 

Pound for pound Titan Mouse of Might is one of the most enjoyable crowd funded books I have backed this year and I instantly backed TITAN: MOUSE 2 today (October 19, 2020) once I saw Gary had launched his second campaign for the book.

If you're a new reader and unfamiliar with the creator Gary Shipman I can easily and highly recommend you checking out his current campaign and picking up the beautifully drawn Titan Mouse of Might 2 where you can get both books if you desire. I also highly recommend checking out Gary's YouTube channel and watching such a MASTERFUL comic book artist draw live. It is a true pleasure to any fan of the comic book art form.

I eagerly anticipate my copy of Titan 2 and made sure to back a higher tier this time so I can get one of those beautiful interior cover sketches I have been coveting while watching Gary live stream and seemingly effortless draw them for the lucky buyers from his first Titan Campaign.

Long live Titan the Mouse and Gary Shipman!