By JinJun Park
Yen Press, 192 pp.
Rating: Older teen

The first volume of JinJun Park’s Raiders is a fast-paced, ultraviolent tale about the hunt for the Holy Grail, the blood of Christ. Irel, a young treasure hunter and gun for hire, and Professor Langhem break into Glastonbury Abbey, a site that they believe might house the Grail. After some Indiana Jones-style hijinks involving a trapped room, the story takes off like a rocket and never really lets up. The duo quickly finds themselves pursued by everyone under the sun, ranging from mysterious soldiers to undead zombie girls, working alone and with the Church. With conspiracy theories, a vague sheen of the occult and some bloody violence, you’d think this would be a fairly good and entertaining read. Sadly, it’s not.

The story is about as straightforward as you can get. There’s a McGuffin, and everyone wants it and are willing to literally tear apart trains to get it. While we are introduced to several characters, including our main character Irel, the nihilistic zombie girl Lamia, and another zombie girl in the employee of the Church, we’re not really told much about them. In fact, they don’t really come across as having much personality at all. Irel’s a happy-go-lucky kind of guy and he’s good with gun, Lamia’s a taciturn, suicidal corpse, etc. They all just feel incredibly flat and lifeless, like they’re objects that are simply there to drive plot forward and present us with some okay action sequences. Admittedly, this is only the first volume so for all I know it might explode into an incredibly deep and moving tale, but right now the characters are flat, uninteresting and pretty forgettable outside of the odd character design.

The art fares only marginally better. JinJun Park’s artwork is light and messy and the over-the-top violence and action isn’t really depicted in a particularly interesting or exciting manner. The action sequences consist heavily of speed lines flailing about, and when we do see actual limbs or bodies posed for action they often look awkward and stiff, lacking in energy or movement. While there is a fair amount of detail to the various characters and their settings, there’s something about the thickness of the lines that causes it look messy and unfinished. There’s also the issue of one character’s mustache disappearing in the middle of a conversation, only to reappear on the next page. It’s a small continuity gaff but it really jumped out at me. That said, there is some good in the character designs. Little touches like Lamia’s face staples reinforce the idea of her body decaying, and the Frankenstein-esque creature is quite snazzy to look at. In addition, the sequences featuring Lamia eating flesh are suitably horrific and disturbing.

I haven’t been able to find out much about JinJun Park, but Raiders almost feels like it’s the freshman outing. The stiff and lifeless art, flat and uninteresting characters, and the vaguely cookie-cutter plot about the hunt for a religious relic that bestows power upon those who possess/consume it all point in that direction. Add in some zombies and it really feels like something a young college student or senior in high school might toss together for their first comic. In the end it’s a pretty forgettable book.

Volume one of Raiders is available now.

Review copy provided by the publisher.